


We Never Change

by harryismymuse



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: (but I will make the slow burn worth it I promise), (only a small bit - gonna try and refrain from it as much as possible), Action & Romance, Alternate Universe - Western, Backstory, Betrayal, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Guns, Hate to Love, Jealousy, M/M, Minor Violence, Mystery, Niall Horan & Harry Styles Friendship, OT5 Friendship, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Revenge, Slow Burn, Western
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-05-02 06:31:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5238014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harryismymuse/pseuds/harryismymuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...'She trusted me. I don’t know why, but she did. Let me put a saddle on her for the first time and everything.” Hazza’s gaze was still far away, but there was a light in them; a shadow of joy from the memory. “The second I climbed on and grasped the reigns—” Hazza smoothed his hands together and shot one forward, like he was cutting the air. “—she was off at full speed, running with everything she had, like her life depended on it. And when I rode her that day, I’d never felt more free. It was like…like nothing could hold me back. I was invincible—”</p><p>“A ghost.” Zayn could picture it. He could see Hazza holding the reigns, leaning forward to ride at top speed. Fingers twisted in the mare’s mane as the wind whipped over his face, taking his breath away.'</p><p>OR: a Zarry 'Old West' AU (Previously titled The Arsonist and the Flame) where Harry is the new guy in town, and Zayn, the town Sheriff, has his suspicions as to whether Harry is who he says he is.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> This is the most random and wild idea I've ever had for a fic, but I'm having a ton of fun writing it. Please bear with me as far as historical details go; I did do a little research, but ultimately there's bound to be a lot of inaccuracies here and there. Some done intentionally, to keep the fic relatable and more free-flowing (such as leaving in some modern dialogue and slang). But by all means, if you know a lot of historical details about the time, please don't hesitate to let me know of any helpful facts that might help the story ring a little more true in certain areas.
> 
> All in all, this is just something I'm writing for fun, and if you read it, I hope you enjoy and leave kudos or comments about what you think :)
> 
> Partially inspired by Hozier's "Arsonist's Lullabye" and Coldplay's 'We Never Change'

"All you have is your fire...  
And the place you need to reach -  
Don't you ever tame your demons  
But always keep them on a leash..."

***

They rode into town on a wild stomp of hooves and a cloud of dust. Zayn was reclining back in his chair in the sheriff’s office, feet kicked up onto the desk while he had a smoke with Liam.

“Who the hell is that?” He asked suddenly, putting out his cigarette and cutting Liam off from whatever he’d been saying. He stood up and went to the window, watching as two strange men driving an open wagon by horse came to a stop right outside the Saloon and tied the reigns to a nearby post. “For fuck’s sake!” He huffed, grabbing his hat and his gun before storming out into the blinding noonday sunshine. Liam scrambled to follow.

The Saloon was dead silent when Zayn walked past the swinging doors; everybody’s attention drawn to the newcomers. Liam came to stand at his side, both of them with a hand on their guns as they watched the back of a man with hair curling down between his shoulder blades, partially covered by the brim of his hat. He and his blonde counterpart had their hands up, getting the attention of everyone in the crowded room.

“Does anyone here—” The curly one was saying, “know where I can find the Sheriff in this town?”

Zayn cleared his throat, then, and all eyes fell on him, including the two strangers. Curly and Blondie, respectively. “What’s your business here, stranger? We don’t care much for visitors in this town.”

Curly grinned at him, all straight white teeth and bright eyes. His face was tanned golden and smeared with dirt, likely due to long travels in the hot sun for several days. “I’m aware, Sheriff. But me and my friend here mean no harm. We’d just like to have a word—if you’re not terribly busy.” Curly’s grin widened impossibly, a pair of dimples suddenly visible in his cheeks.

Zayn hummed, his lips tweaking up in a tight smile. His eyes never left the other man’s. “Alright. A word.” He nodded his head towards a table in the corner of the room and the four of them headed over. By the time they were seated, the Saloon had returned to it’s usual level of unchecked rowdiness. Drinks were passed around and the music started back up again, just as loud.

The men took off their hats and placed their guns out on the table, as was custom. Zayn waved the waitress over and ordered them four glasses of beers that sloshed over the edges, dripping fizz onto the table when they were set in front of them. He drank from his as he waited, listening.

“Name’s Hazza, sir. Hazza Styles.” Curly announced, reaching across the table to shake both Zayn and Liam’s hand. His palm was warm and slightly sweaty, but also firm and all-encompassing. “This here is my right-hand man, Niall Horan.”

Niall, a smaller man with striking blue eyes and a shock of unruly blonde hair on top of his head, tipped his chin forward with a tight-lipped smile.

“Where are you boys from?” Liam inquired, sipping from his own beer before clasping his hands together on the table. His gaze was unwavering as he stared at the two men in front of him.

“Well, sir—” Haz started.

“Payne.” Liam provided.

“Payne—I think we can all agree that a man’s past doesn’t define who he is today.” He grinned; cheeks dimpling again and his eyes crinkling around the edges. Pretty boy type, Zayn thought, barely refraining form an eye roll. Probably used to getting whatever he wants with a little smooth-talking and a smile.

“Mr. Payne is hardly suggesting otherwise.” Zayn interrupted. “It’s reasonable enough to want to know where you come from. You can grant us that much.”

At this, Hazza looked at Niall, and they shared a few words with their eyes. “We come from Louisiana.”

“And what’s your business here?” Zayn asked again, trying to keep his patience.

At that, Hazza perked up, a grin splitting across his face, softening him. “We heard you all were in need of a doctor out here, that right?”

Zayn and Liam exchanged looks. It was Liam who finally spoke up. “Yeah, but what’s that got to do with you?”

“We’re practicing doctors, sir.” Niall beamed. “The best healing hands you’ll find out this way for at least a couple days’ ride.”

Zayn huffed. “If you’re so good, then why are you sitting here asking for work?”

Hazza’s eyes twinkled as they locked on Zayn’s, a bit of a playful challenge in them. “Even the best need to move shop from time to time, Sheriff. We’re just looking for honest work and a place to lay our heads. As I’ve said, we mean no harm. Quite the opposite, really.”

“There’s two of you…” Liam interjected, his gaze boring into their foreheads. “What’s keeping me from just hiring one and calling it a day?”

“We’re a package deal,” Hazza looked at Niall and both of them grinned before facing forward again and meeting Liam’s eyes. “It’s both of us or neither of us.”

There was silence for a moment. Or as silent as it could get in the Saloon with drunkards singing off key to songs they didn’t know the words to.

“You’ve got the job.” Liam said, reaching across the table to shake the hands of both men.

“What the hell!” Zayn cried, looking at Liam in utter betrayal. But Liam ignored him.

“The moment I suspect you boys of any foolery, you and your horses will be riding on to the next town, no questions asked. Is that understood?”

Hazza gave that splitting smile again, like a kid in a candy shop. “You won’t regret this!” He whooped, jumping up and grabbing hold of his hat before waving it around in his excitement. “Come on, Niall. We’ve got work to do.” Both men stood and put their guns away, then politely tipped their hats towards Zayn and Liam before making for the exit.

On the way out, Hazza looked back at Zayn one last time; just a wink and a small smirk, quick as lightening. He wasn’t sure what the hell it was supposed to mean, but it had the hairs on the back of his neck standing up all the same.

“The fuck was that about, huh?” The moment the doctors were out of sight, Zayn shoved Liam hard in the arm. “You actually want to let them practice here?”

“And you don’t!?” Liam shrugged away from Zayn and rubbed his arm with his hand. “This town needs a doctor… It’s either them, or you and I get elbow-deep in some poor sap’s wound.”

Zayn grimaced at the imagery. “I don’t trust them.” He insisted.

“Yeah, well neither do I. But we don’t have much of a choice, do we?”

 

***

 

“You did what?” Mayor James demanded, the vein in his temple straining like it might burst. He’d already been in a bad mood when they knocked on his office door; grumbling to himself as he attempted to wipe up a patch of spilled ink on the front of his shirt. His wife would never let him hear the end of it.

Zayn and Liam stood in front of his desk, hands behind their backs like school boys getting chastised for misbehavior. They both flinched at the outburst, but Zayn was the first to speak up. “They’re doctors, sir. Healing hands, so they claim.” He shot a look at Liam beside him, who’d gone silent.

“Gun-wielding, fast-talking doctors from Louisiana.” James looked at the both of them like they had five heads shared between them. “You’ve gotta be shittin’ me.”

“Well, it is the West… Sir.” Liam said, jaw clenching. Zayn knew him well enough to know he was on the verge of pissing himself. Liam didn’t get yelled at. Liam did as he was told, always. Except now.

“What the hell was wrong with Old Mister Jeb? He seemed to be taking over the doctoring duties just fine.”

Zayn licked his lips, tried to keep his voice even as he said, “He’s a drunk, sir. Spends most his days snoring into his hat.”

Mayor James—a man up in age with grey peeking at his temples and wrinkles lining the skin around his eyes—just sighed and shook his head. “Back in my day if a man was sick he’d just go off and die with a little dignity.”

“…Can they stay, sir?”

“Yes, yes. I suppose they’ll have to, won’t they?” James huffed, turning to crack open a window in the stifling office. “But should I hear so much as a whisper about these boys causing any trouble, I’ll come find both off you and deal with you personally.”

Zayn and Liam glanced at each other, eyes wide, before facing forward again and nodding. “Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Alright, well, go on now.” James waved them away, mouth set into a hard line as he tried to catch a non-existent breeze from the outside air. “Get Jeb out of there while you’re at it,” He called over his shoulder, “Before he kills a man trying to patch a cut.”

 

***

 

“Come on now, let’s go.” Zayn repeated himself for the second time. He and Liam were stood in a narrow little shop in the center of town that used to belong to Doc Jones, the town’s previous physician. The place was all but deserted now except for the pathetic slouch of a man sitting in front of them; hat slipped down over his face as he slept, reclined in his chair. “Jeb!” Zayn shouted, finally losing his patience. He kicked the man’s boot until he startled awake, nearly toppling to the floor.

“Wha? Who’s there?” Jeb slurred, working to balance himself and smoosh his hat back over his head at the same time.

“Time to go, buddy.” Liam muttered, his voice much softer than Zayn’s, as usual. He even reached out and helped the man to his feet, carrying the burden of his weight on his shoulder as he escorted him out of the small building and into the sunshine.

Zayn snorted, shaking his head. Liam was entirely too nice sometimes.

“Hmm… Not bad,”

At the sound of the voice, Zayn whirled around, hand on his gun. Within a few seconds, he recognized it as Hazza’s, but he didn’t move his fingers from where they twitched over the edge of the pistol. Even as he looked the man in the eye, yet again.

“Easy there, Sheriff.” Hazza held up his hands, a self-satisfied smirk on his face. “Always so on edge.”

“Didn’t anybody ever tell you not to go sneaking up on people like that?” Zayn snapped. After a moment’s deliberation, he finally dropped his hand to his side, but he continued to glare. “What are you doing here?”

The curly-haired man dropped his hands as well, and instead used them to sweep over the shelves and counters, picking up dust along the way. His expression was thoughtful and relaxed, despite the mournful ensemble of all black he wore. When Zayn spoke, he looked up at him and smiled; close-mouthed and natural, unlike the wide, somewhat-manufactured grin he’d had on his face since that afternoon. “Gotta practice somewhere, don’t we? I want to get this place cleaned up and functional within the next couple days.”

Zayn raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m happy to burst your bubble on this one, Curly, but there hasn’t been a soul sick with anything more than the sniffles in weeks. There’s no need for the big hurry.”

Hazza chuckled, low and deep, and walked a little closer to Zayn, stepping with an almost imperceptible rightward lean that the Sheriff hadn’t noticed before. “Well, I certainly mean no disrespect…” He reached across the short distance to pick up a spec of debris from Zayn’s shirt, slow and easy. “…but there’s no need for procrastination either.” He smiled as he flicked the spec onto the floor, never breaking eye contact.

Zayn felt something flare up within him. Anger and irritation and something else, ready to cut across his tongue all at once. But before he could say a word, Niall trudged through the door, heaving a giant wooden crate of supplies. He glared at the two of them, knees bent and trembling under the weight. “I could use some help here, Haz!” He gritted.

 

***

 

Louis was just finishing up his shift at the bank when Zayn and Liam walked in. They started laughing the moment they saw him in that ridiculous old suit and the bowtie that nearly cut off the circulation in his neck. Louis heard them and shot them a glare that could ice over hell, but he still had a few people in line to attend to, so he waved the the two of them outside and held up a finger to tell them he’d be out in a minute.

“Just keeps getting hotter,” Liam huffed when they were standing in front of the bank a moment later, leaning up against the front wall. He took his hat in his hand and wiped his face with a handkerchief, grimacing. Across the way was a barber’s shop, and he watched a few men wander in and out.

"Where did you end up taking Jeb?" Zayn asked, squinting against the sun. "He'd probably wander straight across the railroad tracks if we left him to his own devices."

Liam let out a laugh. Short and controlled. His real laugh didn't come out until after he'd had a few drinks. "I put him up in a cell for the night, 'till he sobers up. He didn't seem to mind much."

"Course not. Poor bastard probably doesn't even know what year it is..." Zayn muttered, fighting a grin. “But you know what? Maybe the old man's onto something.”

Liam raised an eyebrow and waited for him to continue.

"Been a while since we had a proper night out, Payne."

"Yeah, and what are you proposing?"

"I'm talking drinks till we can't remember our own names. A bit of music, a couple dames." Zayn could feel himself getting excited just at the thought. "Come on, Li, when was the last time you had a woman?"

Liam blushed bright pink. "Recent enough." He muttered.

"That's a load of horse shit, Payno. Do you even know what to do with a woman anymore?"

"Hey Louis," Zayn and Liam said at the same time.

"If I have to wear this goddamn tie for another second, I'm gonna blow a gasket." Louis tugged it from around his neck, threw it on the ground, and stomped it with his foot."

Zayn and Liam clapped in approval.

"So..." Louis mussed his own hair and pushed himself between them. “Let’s get smashed, shall we?”

 

***

 

The boys ended up in the Saloon, as was their habit, and by the fourth round of beers, Liam’s real laugh had come out and Zayn’s cheeks were flushed with a delicious warmth.

“What’s the harm?” Louis was ribbing him, sloppy grin on his face as he looked at Liam. “I’ll pay. I think the girl in the green skirt likes you.

Liam was red as a candied apple. “Stop, don’t look at her! I don’t need you to pay for me to get a woman. I’ll find a girl on my own.”

Zayn snorted and rolled his eyes. Liam looked at him in betrayal.

Louis’ grin widened impossibly. “You’re not gonna find yourself a respectable lady in a place like this, Payno. Might as well have some fun.”

Zayn gave his cigarette a drag and blew out the smoke, gazing out a little ways past their table at a set of dirty fingers grabbing after a waitress in a blue threadbare dress. “A woman’s a woman. In a bar or sitting in a church pew. That respectable shit’s never made any sense to me.”

Liam and Louis looked at each other, then laughed. Louis was the first to speak up again over the loud piano music playing through the room. “Zayn’s always been a bit of an introspective drunk, yeah? A few more rounds and he’ll be telling us how life’s just a big, endless circle or whatever the hell he was spitting out last week.”

“It’s called using your brain.” Zayn replied, giving Louis’ shoe a kick under the table. “Not that you would know anything about that.”

“Yeah well if you’ve got such a big brain, tell me why you haven’t asked my sister to marry your sorry ass, yet?”

Zayn blew out another puff of smoke and grumbled. “Don’t start with that shit again.”

“He’s right, Z. What are you holding off for?” Liam added, a frown on his face. Always concerned.

“It’s not the right time.” Zayn muttered, putting out his cigarette and turning his attention to a hangnail on his thumb. “I’m not ready.”

“It’s not that you’re not ready.” Louis insisted, leaning in closer to Zayn and slapping a hand on his back. “You’re just a sorry, yellow-bellied—”

“Watch it.” Zayn glared up at him.

Louis just laughed and settled back into his chair with a huff. “She’s waiting for you, man. She’s got ‘em lined up, hoping to court her, but she won’t give any of them the time of day. Meanwhile, she looks at you like the sun shines out your ass.”

Despite himself, Zayn’s lips twitched up in a smile.

“Hey—who’s that over there?” Louis was suddenly craning his neck to look at the entrance of the Saloon, as was nearly everyone else in the place. The music didn’t stop, but things got noticeably quieter as two black-booted men strode in and sat down at the bar.

“Those are the crack doctors we hired this afternoon,” Zayn muttered, nodding his chin towards them. “Styles and Horan.”

“You better hope they’re not cracks, for the sake of our asses.” Liam muttered. And Louis snickered.

“For the sake of your ass cracks,” He muttered, and Liam and Zayn both glared at him, then burst into laughter.

“I don’t trust the curly-haired one.” Zayn said once they’d all calmed down again. He was staring at the man through narrowed eyes, watching his mouth as he laughed; dimpling and blushing a rosy color from the alcohol. The hairs on the back of Zayn’s neck were stood up again, like some sort of sign.

“You’re being creepy.” Liam pointed out.

“Good. I hope I creep him out.” Zayn muttered, continuing to stare. But when Hazza turned to him and waved, as if he knew he’d been watching the whole time, Zayn abruptly returned his gaze to the half-empty beer glass in front of him.

“Told you,” Liam chuckled, taking a sip from his own glass.

The three of them continued to chat idly for a little while longer, until the sound of shattering glass and men’s shouting broke out behind Zayn’s head, and everybody grabbed their guns and scrambled, no questions asked. Women’s screams and the loud thwack of skin hitting skin could be heard everywhere in the Saloon, and Zayn could barely keep track of where it all was coming from.

Curly and Blondie where nowhere in sight, but chairs were flying and glass bottles were being smashed over the heads of whatever idiots had decided to stay behind.

Zayn was one of those idiots.

He dodged a few sloppy punches and threw a couple of his own before he climbed on top of one of the still-standing tables, letting out a long sigh before he took out his pistol and fired three consecutive shots into the ceiling. It drew the attention of the bar brawlers long enough for Liam and Louis to appear and round the men up with a few set of handcuffs and the threat of a bullet to the head.

 

***

 

“So much for getting smashed tonight and not giving a shit,” Liam muttered behind a chuckle as they locked the last of the men up behind bars. They’d stay there overnight to cool off, but no one had gotten majorly hurt, so there was no need for a trial.

“Well, I was smashed,” Zayn grumbled, massaging an eye socket with one fist.

“Hey Zayn, I think you’re bleeding,” Liam said suddenly, eyes wide. He reached out and grabbed Zayn’s hand, pulling it closer. There was, in fact, a thin trickle of blood gushing from his left palm. When Liam touched his finger to it, Zayn hissed and snatched his hand back. “You must have cut it on something. You should have Styles take a look at it.”

Zayn huffed and spat like an old man. “Like hell I will. It’s just a little cut, I’ll be fine.”

“But—”

“Liam.” Zayn snapped.

Liam shook his head and raised his hands in surrender. “Fine. Suit yourself. Louis and I are go for a couple smokes by the railroad. Want to come with?”

But Zayn was already settled in his chair, eyes heavy with exhaustion and a pounding headache. “No, go on without me. I’ll see you in the morning. Someone’s gotta stay here and watch these lovely gentlemen.” He nodded his chin to the jail cells across from his desk where the perps were groaning and cursing, demanding to be let out. Zayn just offered them a cheesy smile and turned back to Liam. “Next time, I promise.”

 

Liam left him to it, then, not arguing with him any further. And once the drunks in the cells finally dozed off, the place was finally quiet enough for Zayn to to focus on something other than the pounding in his head. Namely, the burning sting in his left palm that was worsening by the minute.

He gritted his teeth and resolutely reached under his desk for the bottle of Moonshine sitting there. He took off his shirt and balled it up to bite on it while he popped the cork. Then he drizzled a bit of it over the open wound on his hand, choking a shout into the balled up cloth as his entire body tensed with the burn. He was gasping as he spit it out, but at least the wound wouldn’t get infected.

 

***

 

He didn’t exactly remember falling asleep, but at some point he must have, because he woke with a start to sunshine and one of the perps banging on the iron bars of his cell, shouting. With sleep still in his eyes, Zayn drew his gun and aimed. “Shut. The fuck. Up. Or you’ll be in that cell permanently.”

His head hurt like hell, but his hand hurt like the devil himself when he tried to use it to support himself as he got out of his chair. He tasted blood as he fell back into the wooden seat, having bit his lip through the skin to keep from crying out like a little girl. In the light of the early morning, he could see that the gash in his hand was a lot deeper than he’d previously thought, and after a night in the open air, it was an irritated, puckered red color, crusted over but bleeding again after the stress Zayn had just put on it.

He cursed, then pounded his good fist on his desk before cursing again.

 

***

 

After releasing the bar brawlers from their cells and attempting to shave the three-day-old scruff off his cheeks, Zayn found Dr. Styles sitting at a desk in the corner of his little main-street shop, frowning as he sorted through papers. He didn’t seem to hear Zayn’s careful steps as he walked through the door, so for a moment, Zayn just sort of watched him.

His hat absent, Hazza’s hair flowed freely along his shoulders in silky, mahogany ringlets. His hands were smeared with ink, and the silver rings on his fingers glimmered in the subtle light through the open windows. Zayn finally just frowned and cleared his throat, widening his stance as he waited somewhat impatiently for the doctor to look up from what he was doing.

“One moment, please,” Hazza lifted a finger without lifting his head, still bent over his papers, reading something intensely. Zayn bit his already-sore lip and crossed his arms, trying his best to remain pleasant. But his temper was flaring, simmering like hot coals the sharper the pain hissed through his hand.

A few moments later, Hazza looked up at him, grinning so wide his dimples cratered both of his cheeks. “Good morning, Sheriff. How can I help you?” He stood then, a long, cross necklace swishing on his chest and a couple silver bracelets dangling from his wrist. He was wearing all black again, his pants tight and his shirt unbuttoned to the center of his torso, revealing dark tattoos etched in tanned skin. Zayn found himself wondering for the hundredth time what type of doctor the man really was.

“Can you fix it?” Zayn thrust out his left hand, showing off the disgusting gash on his palm. He grimaced and gritted his teeth when Hazza came forward and grabbed him by the thumb to bring him closer for a better look.

“My,” He murmured, frowning down at the cut. “You should have come to me sooner.”

Zayn lurched his hand back and away from him, a scowl on his face. “Can you fix it or not?”

The doctor’s eyes glittered a bright, clear green beneath his lashes as a crooked smile crept across his lips. “Yeah, I can fix it.”

 

***

 

Zayn found himself sat on a short wooden stool, facing sideways and resting his hand palm-up on a table while Hazza fussed over a collection of jars on the shelf across the room. When he’d finally selected the one he wanted, he came over with a grin on his face and sat down at the table across from Zayn.

“What the hell is that?” Zayn asked at one point, watching him mix together a green paste in a small mason jar with a flat wooden stirrer.

“Helps numb the skin.” Hazza murmured. And when he looked up to see Zayn staring at him like he had five heads, he rolled his eyes. “It’s all natural. Relax. If you don’t let me use it, I’ll have to sew you up while you feel every prick of the needle.”

Zayn shut his mouth at that, hissing at the weird, slimy, stingy feel of the paste as the young doctor slid some over his skin.

“So that was pretty valiant of you, yesterday evening. Stepping in the middle of a bar fight like that.” Hazza said as he bent over to begin working on Zayn’s hand. He glanced up every thirty seconds or so, studying Zayn through his lashes.

Zayn huffed, an amused grin tweaking at the edges of his lips despite himself. “That’s just my job. If I don’t do it, no one else will.”

Hazza hummed, nodding his head ever so slightly as he cleaned the wound. “You’re going to feel a little pressure,” He warned, going in with a pair of tweezers, making Zayn’s forearm tense. “Relax,” He almost cooed, his free index finger moving along the thin veins of Zayn’s wrist, touching so lightly it sent mini electric shocks up his spine.

They were quiet for a while after that, Zayn watching him work.

“What about Liam?” Hazza spoke again.

Zayn quirked his eyebrows. “What about him?”

“You said that if you don’t do your job, no one else will. But isn’t he your partner? Co-sheriff, or something like that?” Hazza glanced up at him, a slow, close-mouthed grin spreading over his face.

“I’m pretty sure that’s not a real thing.” Zayn muttered, shaking his head lightly. “But yes, Liam helps me out a lot… He’s very smart. Smarter than me. He keeps me out of trouble, and keeps things civil around here.”

“You’re a bit of a hot head, I can tell.” Hazza laughed breathily, sending waves of warm breath over Zayn’s skin.

“Why would you say—ahh!” Zayn grimaced as the doctor pulled a piece of glass out of the wound and set it on a bit of cloth spread out over the tabletop. “Dammit!”

“You live here all your life?” Hazza asked, continuing on calm as ever despite Zayn’s outburst. He had mothering hands; slow and gentle, always so careful.

Zayn’s brows furrowed, and he looked at the top of the doctor’s head for a while, taking his time to answer. “’S long as I can remember.” He finally said.

Styles gave a little pressure along Zayn’s wrist, reassuring him before making the first stitch into his palm. “And the scar?” His eyes glanced up, then settled on the ugly, puckered scar twisting along Zayn’s left forearm. With his free hand, he reached out to touch it, tracing the length of it. “Looks like it hurt.”

Reflexively, Zayn tugged his sleeve down lower and glared at the doctor. “You ask a hell of a lot of questions, Curly.”

Hazza just shrugged one shoulder and smiled again. He pulled his hand away from Zayn’s scar and swiped his hair out of his face before focusing back in on his stitching. “I’m a curious guy,” He murmured under his breath. “What can I say?”

 

***

 

“There you are. Good as new.” Hazza announced finally, backing away from Zayn’s hand and letting the Sheriff admire the handy work. The cut was clean and sewn up with neat little straight lines. “Come and see me in a couple weeks and I’ll take those stitches out for you.”

Zayn turned his hand this way and that, trying to keep the smile off his face. “Thanks, Curly.”

“Any time,” Hazza beamed, leaning against his desk now, one leg crossed over the other, a black shiny boot tapping against the floor. His hair was falling into his face again, but this time he didn’t bother fixing it.

“Er, how much do I owe you?” Zayn fumbled his right hand into his back pocket, searching for coins.

Styles waved him away though, shaking his head so that his dark ringlets swayed against his shoulder. “No need to pay me this time, Sheriff.”

Zayn stopped his fumbling and frowned, eyeing the doctor through narrowed lids. “It’s alright. I insist.”

“And I insist,” Hazza pushed off from the desk and walked a little closer to Zayn, a small smile on his lips. “There’s no need to pay me. At least not in coins.”

If possible, Zayn’s eyes narrowed further. “What’s your proposition then, Curly? I’d sell you my soul, but I’m using it at the moment.”

Hazza chuckled, the sound low and musical. “Listen; Niall and I…we’re new in town and we don’t know anybody. That makes us feel…uncomfortable, to say the least.”

Zayn grumbled, “What’s that got to do with me? Go buy a couple rounds of beer at the Saloon and make yourself a goddamn friend.”

Hazza’s smile flickered, only for a moment, but long enough for Zayn to catch it. “Well Sheriff…I consider you a friend. After all you’ve done for us—”

As if on queue, Niall came trotting down the stairs from the upstairs apartment. All ruddy-cheeked and bright eyed, his boots thumping heavily on the hardwood despite his slight frame. “Hello there, Sheriff.”

Zayn tipped his head forward a in reply, his mouth pressed into a hard line as he glanced from him to Hazza. “I’m not your friend,” He said, staring the curly-haired man in the eyes and feeling them bore into the back of his head.

Hazza hardly flinched at the rejection. Just continued to speak as if Zayn hadn’t said a word. “The people in this town don’t take kindly to strangers, you said it yourself. And you may not consider yourself as our friend, but we consider you as ours.”

“I still don’t understand what the hell any of this has to do with anything,” Zayn snapped, itching to move towards the door.

“Protection, Sheriff. We need someone looking out for us if we’re going to stay here.” Hazza said, his voice hard and his once-gentle features turned severe. “We do good work; you see that now.” He gestured to Zayn’s hand. “All I ask is that you have our back and show the townspeople they can trust us.”

“It’s my job to keep all the people in this town safe. Even you.” Zayn cut, the vein in his neck straining as he took a step closer to the doctor and looked him in the eye. “I’ll do my job. But I won’t say that I trust you—because I don’t. And the friendly-neighborhood-doctor routine you just pulled isn’t gonna change that.”

With that, Zayn took a few silver coins out of his pocket and tossed them onto the nearest table before settling both men with a hard glare and walking out into the late morning sunshine.

 

***

 

He caught sight of her through the windows of the schoolhouse that afternoon; Isabelle Marie James. She had her hair tied back away from her face, and she was wearing a flowing baby blue dress that made her eyes shine beneath her lashes. Zayn watched her blush with laughter as she shooed her students out of the classroom for recess. Then he kicked around in the dirt for awhile just a few meters away, waiting for her to find him like she always did.

“Well, well. Look who blew in on a tumbleweed.” Isabelle chuckled, walking towards him with a subtle sway to her hips. She had her palm held to her forehead in a kind of salute to keep the sun out of her eyes, and her lips were stretched into a smile. “The Sheriff himself, as I live and breathe.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” Zayn pushed the butterflies out of his throat to find his voice. He could feel himself grinning like an idiot, but he couldn’t help it. “It’s been a few days since I’ve visited, I’m sorry to keep you waiting.”

Isabelle came as close as she dared before peeking over her shoulder at the children playing in the low grass. “I never wait.” She countered, brow lifted. “Waiting is a waste of time. Hoping…hoping, maybe.”

Zayn smirked, shuffling to keep his hands to himself despite how badly he wanted to touch her. “You sound just like your father.”

Isabelle giggled, low and raspy, and bowed at the waist. “Just call me Mr. Mayor.” She said, fluttering her hand out in front of herself dramatically.

They walked for a while until they felt safe enough to link their hands between them, always keeping the children in sight.

“How’s my brother? And Liam?” Isabelle asked.

“Doing well.” Zayn said simply, until he looked at her face and saw she was waiting for him to say more. “Um, well…” He scratched at his head and sighed. “Louis is…about the same. Your dad’s still trying to get him to ‘get a real job’, and Louis’ still fighting him tooth and nail over it. He hates his job at the bank, but he won’t leave it out of stubbornness.”

Isabelle smiled, a little melancholy around the edges. But her laugh was light. “That sounds about normal. And Liam?”

“Well—” Zayn started to say, but he was cut off by shouting.

“Joseph, stop pulling Elizabeth’s pigtails! Play respectfully or recess will be cut short!” Isabelle hollered over to the kids. A weak reply of ‘sorry, Ms. James’ was carried over on the next wind, and Isabelle smiled, seemingly pleased with herself. “I’m sorry, continue,” She said to Zayn.

He took a big breath, an amused grin on his face. “Liam is doing well. Excited for the next election, obviously. He says he has big plans for the town, if he’s chosen. And of course he will be.”

Isabelle watched on with expectant eyes, prodding him for more information without even opening her mouth.

“He’s… he’s lonely, I think.” Zayn mumbled, kicking a stone out of his way with the toe of his boot. They’d stopped under the shade of a nearby tree, and Zayn found himself leaning up against the sturdy trunk, hat in hand. “But who isn’t?”

Zayn looked up at her, but she had her head turned, jaw clenching slightly. She stayed like that for a while before finally sighing and pressing her palm to her forehead.

“I miss them. Terribly. I hardly ever get to see them now since they moved out.” She admitted, tears gleaming in her eyes for a quick moment before she blinked them away. “I miss how it used to be. All four of us when we were kids. I miss getting my fucking shoes muddy!” She froze for a moment after she said it, gasped, and clasped her hand over her mouth before ultimately doubling over with laughter.

“You can’t fool me,” Zayn joined in with her and reached out to swipe the laughter tears away from her cheeks as they both giggled loudly. “You curse like a sailor and fight like a bull. I knew you before you were a tight-assed school teacher, remember?”

“God, I’ve missed you the most,” She breathed, wet eyelashes fluttering.

“Me? You see me all the time.”

“No,” Isabelle shook her head, as if it were ridiculous that Zayn didn’t understand what she meant. “Not you, the Sheriff. You—Zayn—skinny, awkward, sweet, sweet Zayn. My best friend. My partner in crime.”

Zayn blushed before he could help it, turning his face away and pressing his lips into a line.

“See? Look at you.” Isabelle crossed her arms as she looked at him, brows raised in amusement. “Can’t even smile without feeling like your reputation is at stake. My best friend Zayn loved to smile.”

A bit of irritation flared under his skin, and he couldn’t stop himself before he snapped, “Stop acting like I’ve changed so much that you don’t even recognize me now, Iz. It’s called growing up. You did, and so did I.”

“Have you now?” She chuckled, moving closer and eyeing him in that way of hers that always used to infuriate him when they were kids. “Or are you just playing pretend?”

Zayn moved to jerk away from her, completely pissed off, but she pressed a kiss to his cheek, so soft and gentle their skin barely touched. And then another, deeper, kiss on his lips that left him glaring at her, blinking and trying to make sense of the jumbled-up mess of his mind.

“Some of us,” She said, suddenly serious, holding his stare. “Have a choice not to be lonely.”

 

***

 

The next morning, Liam came stomping into the office before the sun had even properly risen. “Zayn! Zayn, wake up!”

“Liam, I’ll wring your skinny neck if you don’t shut up and leave me alone.” Zayn groaned, turning over on his cot.

He heard Liam huff and chuckle under his breath. “Yeah, I’d like to see you try.” Then, louder. “Seriously, come on. There’s been a break-in.”

 

***

 

The first thing he noticed when he walked into the little one-room shop was the glass crunching under his feet, some from the broken window, and some from the shattered mason jars of herbs and medicines that were leaking all over the wooden floors. Second, he noticed the way Dr. Styles’ eyes glowed in the early morning sunlight, so bright and clear it was like the color was nearly gone from his irises.

It wasn’t until Hazza turned away from the light that Zayn could see the long, shallow cut running along his jaw.

“So you didn’t get a glimpse of the man?” Liam was asking, absentmindedly kicking around some papers with his boot. Niall rushed over and picked them up before Liam could do any more damage, his eyes hard as he glared up at him.

“No, it was dark, and I’d just woken up.” Hazza shook his head slightly, curls falling over his eyes as he spoke. He swiped them back from his forehead, mouth pressed into a grim line as his gaze bounced from Zayn to Liam. A crowd of people had gathered outside and were peeking in through the broken windows, wondering what happened. “Whoever he was, he hit me in the jaw with something when I came downstairs. Startled me long enough for him to get away, I suppose.”

Zayn watched the tremble in Hazza’s hand as he tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. His lips were an almost bruised color of pink, pouting slightly instead of stretched into the smile Zayn had grown accustomed to. “How long ago did this happen?” He asked.

“About three hours ago.” Niall intervened, putting himself in front of Hazza, staring Zayn dead in the eyes. “We would have reported it earlier, but we were too busy cowering under our fucking beds, hoping they didn’t come back.”

Liam wandered over, frowning with concern at the sudden change of atmosphere.

“If you’re so good at your goddamn job like you claim to be, then why did this happen?” Niall demanded.

“Niall,” Hazza said quietly, placing a hand on his shoulder. Niall glanced back at him, then sighed loudly and walked out the door, wedging through the crowd until he got free.

“Look, I’m sorry this happened.” Zayn said, feeling sick to his stomach as he looked down at his perfectly-stitched up hand, then back up at the raw cut along Hazza’s jaw. “I didn’t know—I…didn’t realize how far it would escalate.”

“It’s alright, Sheri—”

Zayn shook his head, looked around at the mess. “It isn’t.” He sighed. “You were right, about needing protection.”

Slowly, Hazza’s mouth twitched up into a smile, dimpling his cheeks and breathing life back into his eyes. Zayn watched, feeling a tingling at the edge of his own lips.

Liam frowned deeper though, looking from Zayn to Hazza and back again. “What’s this about protection?”

“Nothin’ Liam,” Zayn said, reaching out to shake the doctor’s hand. “Just making friends.”


	2. Two

Zayn lifted his hands over his head, fingers splayed apart and stretched towards the rising sun. He was standing on an old crate in front of the vandalized shop, trying to keep his footing as he fixed the crowed with a stern gaze. “Listen up,” He shouted, making sure he had the attention of the large huddle of townspeople and anyone who happened to be walking by. “Criminal acts such as this will not be tolerated in this town. Anyone who thinks they’re above punishment and decides to ignore this warning will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. My friends here—” Zayn looked over to his right where Hazza and Niall were standing with Liam. Hazza’s eyes were locked on him, dazzling and impossible to read. “—Dr. Styles and Dr. Horan, they’re one of us now. Only here to work and make an honest living, as they have the right to do. Let’s welcome them, treat them like neighbors, and keep a little civility around here, alright?”

His impromptu speech was answered with a few stray claps throughout the crowd, as well as the rising hum of whispers as they all dispersed, only chancing a few quick glances over their shoulders every so often. 

“You think that’s gonna be enough to stop this from happening?” Liam asked, watching with an amused lift of his brow as Zayn hopped down from the crate and smoothed his hands over his pants. 

“No, of course not.” Zayn replied, sighing. “This town doesn’t trust easy. It’ll take time for them to stop seeing you as outsiders.” He addressed the last part to Niall and Hazza, his gaze dancing between the two. “But a warning can’t hurt. And now that they know we’re on your side, people might think twice about trying something stupid.”

Niall cleared his throat, brows furrowing over bright blue eyes. When he reached out his hand to shake Zayn’s hand, it was done with a lot of thought and deliberation. “Thank you,” He said, sincerity heavy in his voice as he looked the Sheriff directly in the eye. 

Zayn nodded once, feeling a bit uneasy under the blonde’s unwavering gaze. “Uh, yeah, you’re welcome.” He said, letting his hand drop first. He took a breath, preparing to speak again, but before he could, he felt warm fingers on his shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze. The contact was so unexpected that Zayn nearly pulled away from it, but his gaze fell on Hazza’s smile and the way the doctor was studying him beneath a thoughtful frown.

“Thanks, Sheriff.” His voice was low and somewhat scratchy, but cheerful nonetheless. He dropped his hand away from Zayn’s shoulder after a few more seconds, but his gaze never wavered. 

Awkward silence followed with everyone’s eyes on Zayn. It wasn’t until the Sheriff cleared his throat and looped his thumbs through his belt loops that they seemed to snap out of it.

“Alright,” Zayn said aloud, adjusting the brim of his old black hat and nodding towards the shop. “Let’s get this place cleaned up.”

 

***

 

Zayn wiped the sweat from his forehead with a cloth and took a look around at the work they’d done. The sun was just beginning to set, and they’d finally put the little shop back in working order. All the glass was swept from the floor, along with the herbs and various medicinal mixtures that had been knocked to the floor during the break-in. Niall was nearly finished counting the stock of their shelves, and Hazza and Liam were hammering the last nail into the boards they’d secured over the broken window. 

“‘Bout time to call it a night,” Zayn announced, stuffing the cloth into his back pocket and grabbing his hat from a nearby table. A few grunts of agreement sounded in reply.

“Wait boys,” Niall held up a hand, looking from Zayn to Liam. There was a bit more life glimmering in his eyes now, and his cheeks were reddened from the heat of the stifling room. “We don’t have much, and I can’t say either of us is the best cook, but please, stay for dinner.”

Hazza nodded, adding, “It’s the least we can do.”

“Oh, um, well—” Liam looked to Zayn.

“It’s not safe to stay here tonight.” Zayn said, settling his hat on his head as he spoke. “Probably won’t be for a while. But you can stay with a friend of ours in the meantime. She makes a great stew, you’ll love her.”

Niall and Hazza eyed each other across the room, communicating in that way of theirs without ever moving their lips. Zayn waited, tapping his foot with slight impatience.

“Alright,” Hazza finally said, turning to meet Zayn’s eyes. His face was serious a moment before splitting into a grin. “Let’s go then, I’m not getting any younger.” He grabbed his hat and did a little dance as he walked out the door. 

 

***

 

“Where’s your horse, Sheriff?” Hazza called to Zayn from where he stood next to his sable mare. He petted her neck and cooed something to her under his breath, lips nearly touching her face. When he glanced up at Zayn there was a playful glitter in his eyes. 

“Zayn doesn’t much care for horses,” Liam provided, already settled onto the saddle of his own horse and wobbling from side to side as the animal fidgeted, kicking his hooves into the dust. “He’d rather take his time walking.”

“Huh,” Hazza climbed up on the sable’s saddle in one graceful swoop of his long legs. “Seems to me like a waste of time.”

“It’s barely a half hour’s walk. I’m in no hurry.” Zayn bit out, feeling his temper simmer and pop around in the pitt of his belly. 

Hazza swept a long curly lock out of his eyes and smirked at Zayn from atop his horse. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of a little horse-riding, Sheriff.”

Zayn fumed, opening his mouth with every intention of telling Hazza exactly where he could ride the damn horse—but he was interrupted by Niall coming out the front door and locking up the shop with a grin on his face. 

“All set, fellas,”

“You’re sure?” Hazza asked, suddenly serious. There was a bit of a delay before he added, “Don’t need any more uninvited guests, do we?”

“Double-checked it, m’dear.” Niall slapped Hazza’s boot playfully before climbing onto the back of his smaller black horse that had been loosely tied up to a post while they waited. 

“Well…I s’pose we’ll see you later then?” Hazza smirked and tipped his hat towards Zayn, the three men already urging their horses forward and passing him up. 

Liam could be heard snickering from a few feet away, and Niall looked a little confused, until Liam happily explained the predicament and the blonde clutched his gut and laughed the loudest, head thrown back to the sky. 

“Stop moving. Just—hold on a fucking second, would you?” Zayn gritted, trying to keep pace with the trotting horses without looking like an idiot. He waved his hands for the group to stop, and after a while they obliged, Hazza in particular looking amused. “Make some room,” Zayn demanded, glaring up at the doctor as he braced his hand on the back of the sable mare’s saddle. “I’m climbing up.”

 

***

 

Zayn regretted the decision immediately. 

Or at least the decision to ride with Hazza and not Liam, or even Niall. Because Hazza liked to ride fast. Too fast. He tugged on the reigns with one hand and whooped a command to his horse before they took off, fast as a silver bullet. He was a lunatic; a downright lunatic, holding on tight to his hat and calling into the wind as they raced across the railroad tracks and on into the horizon towards the setting sun. Hazza’s long hair flew back into Zayn’s face, getting in the Sheriff’s mouth and eyes. His waist was so small that Zayn was nearly bear-hugging him from behind, warranting a breathless “Relax!” shouted to him over the thundering sound of the ride. But Zayn couldn’t relax; he could barely breathe. So he pressed his face into Hazza’s back and squeezed his eyes shut, focusing on the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of the horse’s hooves hitting the ground and the way the languid muscles of Hazza’s back flexed under his shirt with his every movement. But most of all, he focused on not dying. 

 

***

 

When Zayn opened his eyes again, he was in front of a familiar old wooden cabin. The sky was pink turning purple fast, and Ms. Sawyer King was standing on her front porch; long, grey-streaked black hair tied up in a knot at the back of her head and both hands resting on her wide hips. She squinted at him over the short distance even though Zayn was pretty certain her eyesight was just fine. 

“You got my Zayn on a horse? Well I’ll be!” She laughed loud and full, smile lines appearing beside her lips. “Thought I’d witness a white Christmas in Texas before I saw anything like this!”

Zayn blinked, working to get his bearings before he realized he still had his arms wrapped around Hazza’s waist like a vise. “Sorry.” He cleared his throat and let go, hoping his cheeks weren’t burning as bright as they felt. 

“No worries,” Hazza coughed a bit, sucking in his first full breath in five minutes, but there was a smile in his voice. 

The ground shook and a rumble of stomping hooves could be heard behind them as Niall and Liam arrived on their horses a few moments later.

Hazza hopped down from his horse with the same grace he’d mounted with and held tight to her reigns while petting her cheek and cooing a gentle “that’a girl,”. When Zayn tried to do the same, he wasn’t so lucky, ending up on his ass in the dirt followed by immediate howls of laughter. Specifically the spluttered cackle he heard coming from a few feet away that scared off a couple of birds and carried distinctively through the once-quiet, evening air.

“Shut up, Louis!” He shouted, only half angry as he took Liam’s offered hand and got back to his feet. “Listen, no one speaks of this. Ever.” Zayn pointed a stern finger at Hazza, Liam, and then Louis and Niall, who were standing on the front porch next to Sawyer, watching them with shit-eating grins. “Not ever, do you hear me?” He said a little louder.

“He looked like a rag doll up there!” Louis threw his head back and cackled again, clutching his belly. “One bump in the trail and he’d have gone flying!”

Everybody had another laugh at Zayn’s expense, Niall’s so loud it carried over the others. Usually Zayn would’ve grumbled and stewed about the teasing, but as it was, he was too relieved at being alive to be bothered by much of anything. 

“I’m going to have to fight a bull with my bare hands to get any respect in this town again.” Zayn muttered, biting back a smile. 

“More like a leopard,” Liam grinned and clapped him on the back good-naturedly. Zayn rolled his eyes.

“Alright boys, well dinner is almost ready. There’s plenty for everyone. Tend to your horses then come on in.” Sawyer announced, waving them all away before returning inside. 

Zayn walked with the lot of them around the back of the house and watched from a bit of a distance as the others fed their horses and gave them water. He was nearest to Hazza’s sable mare, so he paid her the most attention.

“You really don’t like horses?” 

Zayn was startled out his his thoughts by a slow, deep voice. He’d been staring at the mare’s knobby knees and wondering how they supported such a powerful beast, especially when she was running fast enough to rival the wind. He looked up to see Hazza’s clear green eyes boring into him, catching the last glimmers of sunlight in the sky until they were all but glowing. It was a moment before Zayn collected himself enough to respond.

“Yeah, I really don’t like horses.”

Harry swept his hand over the mare’s long neck, the movement so gentle it was like he barely touched her. “Maybe just cause you’ve never gotten to know one.”

Zayn huffed a laugh. “You say that like they’re people or something.”

Hazza just looked at him and smirked. “If you talk to them, you can get to know them. Come here,”

Zayn hesitated. He watched Liam, Louis, and Niall walk back around the house while wrapped up in their own conversation, already having secured and tended to their horses before washing up for dinner. “Alright,” Zayn decided to play along, coming forward so that he was looking the mare in one big, dark eye. 

“Careful now,” Hazza murmured, radiating heat and a composed calm as he came to stand beside him. A second passed before he took Zayn’s hand and placed it on the side of the horse’s face, palm against her warm coat. The doctor’s unexpected touch felt like an electric shock running up Zayn’s arm; so intense it was almost painful. 

Zayn jerked his hand away from the grasp before he could control it, and Hazza cursed under his breath as the mare let out a frantic huff of air. She stomped her two front hooves, kicking up a cloud of dust and pulling on her reigns. “Whoa, girl. Whoa there.” He hummed, petting her tense neck and refusing to move, even as the horse bucked and shook its head, letting out a loud, desperate whinny. Zayn watched with wide eyes, stumbling back, half-convinced that Hazza had lost his mind. 

“What are you doing? Step away from there!” He hissed, but Hazza ignored him. Instead, he started singing. Low and hypnotic, something like a lullaby, just barely audible above the horse’s fuss.

Zayn should run. He knew he should run. But he couldn’t take his eyes off of it; the way Hazza remained so still, almost statuesque save for the rhythmic sweeps of his hand over the horse’s tense body and the curve of his lips around the murmured lyrics of the song. The sky was nearly all the way dark now, and a soft warm glow could be seen coming through the windows of the little house. A few more minutes and one of the boys would surely come out to see what was taking so long, but before Zayn could mention this, Hazza was by his side, running a hand through his hair and fingering the brim of his hat. The mare was standing peacefully, drinking from a water trough like the last five minutes had never happened. 

“You suck at dealing with horses.” Hazza said, but he was grinning. 

“Yeah, and what was that shit you just pulled, Curly? I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.”

Hazza laughed, a dimple popping in his cheeks. “They’re animals. They can sense fear. So just…don’t be afraid.”

“Wow. Insightful.” Zayn huffed. “Can you say it again? I didn’t get a chance to write that down.”

Hazza shrugged. “Some things are just simple that way.”

“To you, maybe.” They rolled up their sleeves started over to the small wash bowl on the back of the house, careful to watch their step in the darkness. “So what’s her name anyway? The horse?”

Hazza chuckled then, eyeing Zayn with a mischievous smirk over his shoulder as he soaped up his hands. “Ghost.”

 

***

 

Sawyer’s dinner table was one of the few places in the world where Zayn actually felt at home. It wasn’t even a very big table; Niall and Louis couldn’t fit and ended up sitting on a few spare wooden crates, balancing their bowls of stew in their hands as they ate greedily, dribbling broth down their chins. Sawyer chided them to mind their manners and act sensibly, but the remark was half-hearted and said amidst a fond smirk.

About midway through the meal, the backdoor creaked open and slammed shut, halting the casual conversation among them long enough for everyone to look up and watch as a man—about 6 ft 3’ with broad shoulders, a strong jaw, and piercing blue eyes—walked into the room. His clothes were worn and dingy brown with sweat and dirt, but his sleeves had been rolled up around his elbows from when he’d washed up for dinner. He silently walked over to the pot of stew to pour himself a bowl, afterwards pulling an old stool up to the table between Zayn and Liam, crowding the two of them enough that they had to scoot over, Zayn’s arm brushing against Hazza’s. 

“This is Xander, Sawyer’s son.” Zayn managed, nodding towards Hazza and Niall.

“Oh,” Hazza’s eyes had gone a little wide, but he reached his hand across the table in an attempt at a greeting. “Hello, it’s nice to meet you,”

Xander glanced up at Hazza’s open palm for two beats before returning his attention to his stew without a word or any further acknowledgment of the greeting. 

“He’s mute, darlin’.” Sawyer said from the other end of the table. Her eyes were kind and sad at the same time. “Hasn’t said a word since he was a boy.”

After a moment, Hazza finally pulled his hand back from Xander and nodded his understanding.

“We take in all sorts of visitors here. Stragglers passing through town without a dime. Folks down on their luck needing a hot meal and place to lay their head.” Sawyer continued, the sadness leaving her eyes just as quickly as it had come. “But you boys—Niall, Hazza—are the first fresh faces in a long while to be invited to sit at this table as casual friends. I hope these three haven’t given you a hard time since you came into town,” She narrowed her eyes jokingly at Liam, Louis, and Zayn. 

“Just the standard roughing up, of course.” Louis laughed, smile lines showing around his eyes.

“They’ve been…exceptionally hospitable.” Hazza said slowly, a somewhat teasing smile spreading across his face as he glanced over at the Sheriff. Something about it made Zayn’s heart jump into his throat. 

“Well-spoken.” Sawyer said, an impressed smile lifting at the edges of her lips. “I used to be a school teacher, so I appreciate a man with a healthy vocabulary.”

“She was the best school teacher this town’s ever had,” Liam added, grinning.

“Best school teacher we’ve ever had at least,” Louis said with a flick of his spoon. His smile was wide and cheeky.

“A pain in my boot, you boys,” Sawyer muttered fondly. “Like breaking a stallion three times over.”

“Hey, I was a good kid,” Liam protested. 

“You might not have started the mischief, Liam, but you went along with it.” Sawyer got up and went around the table, collecting empty bowls and spoons licked clean. 

“That’s correct. I started it, and I’d like due credit for it.” Louis spoke up. 

Zayn laughed, real and full for the first time in what seemed like ages, and he listened as his friends reminisced over the stories of their childhood. Of sneaking off to smoke cigarettes under open skies, first kisses against the side of the old school building, and losing their books on the walk to class one morning because they were being chased by a mange-ridden wild dog. In turn, Niall and Hazza shared what it was like growing up back home in Louisiana, getting into trouble and skirting the rules; turns out there wasn’t much difference. Same old stories a few hundred miles apart. By the end of it all, the lot of them were laughing hard enough to cry and feeling more at ease together than they ever expected to be.

“That’s about enough story-tellin’ for me. I’m heading off to bed. Behave yourselves now,” Sawyer stood and pinched Zayn’s cheek playfully. “Niall, Hazza—you stay as long as you need. It isn’t much, but you’re welcome to what we have.” She walked away with a smile on her face, shuffling off to the back room where she slept. When Zayn glanced at Hazza, he was beaming, eyes lit up like the fourth of July. 

 

None of them felt much like going to bed, even after the night came alive with the sounds of owls hooting and the gentle glow of fireflies hovering over tall grass. So instead they headed out onto the front porch, downing moonshine and lighting cigarettes that sparked and fizzled like the weak light coming from the old kerosene lamp they’d lit. With a silent nod of permission from Xander, Niall got his hands on a guitar and started up a bit of singing. The lot of them laughing and stomping boots along to the music. 

“Won’t we wake Sawyer with all this racket we’re keeping?” Hazza asked, glancing over his shoulder every so often. His hair was frizzing a little, creating a kind of halo around his head that looked golden in the low light. Zayn blew out a cloud of smoke and settled his gaze on the steady tap of Niall’s boot instead, watching the way it kept with the rhythm of the music. 

“She sleeps like the dead,” He explained. “God himself couldn’t wake that woman if he tried,”

Hazza laughed. A high sort of breathless chuckle that carried over the strums of the guitar and the heavy hum of male voices. “So you come here every week?”

“Every week. Sometimes more often than that.” Zayn nodded. “It’s the only time we really get to have this anymore.” The last part was said quietly, like an afterthought. Zayn let his eyes wander over the faces of his friends. Liam and Louis sitting side by side, drunkenly singing lyrics that didn’t make sense. Niall red-faced and grinning, a hearty laugh escaping his mouth as he picked up the pace of the song a bit, and Louis whooped in approval. Xander was sat back watching it all, a lopsided smile on his face and silent chuckles falling from his lips. 

“Why’s your horse named Ghost?” He asked as an afterthought, the words slurring off his tongue before he realized he was speaking. The alcohol was starting to hit him pretty hard, and he could feel a pleasant swimming inside his head, all of his thoughts sloshing around, too messy and incoherent to bother him. 

Hazza seemed to think for a while before answering. His lips were wet and dark pink from drinking, and his pupils were blown wide, despite his relaxed, maddeningly sober appearance. Zayn’s eyes trailed to where his shirt was unbuttoned over his chest, leaving a large patch of tanned skin open to the night air. He watched it rise as Hazza took a breath, then fall as he let it out. 

“She’s the fastest horse I’ve ever ridden,” He finally spoke, a thoughtful look in his eyes. “When I bought her she was practically wild. Untamable, they called her. So I got her for a dirt cheap price to get her off their hands.”

Zayn listened, taking another pull of his cigarette and tilting his head back to blow out the smoke.

“She trusted me. I don’t know why, but she did. Let me put a saddle on her for the first time and everything.” Hazza’s gaze was still far away, but there was a light in them; a shadow of joy from the memory. “The second I climbed on and grasped the reigns—” Hazza smoothed his hands together and shot one forward, like he was cutting the air. “—she was off at full speed, running with everything she had, like her life depended on it. And when I rode her that day, I’d never felt more free. It was like…like nothing could hold me back. I was invincible—”

“A ghost.” Zayn could picture it. He could see Hazza holding the reigns, leaning forward to ride at top speed. Fingers twisted in the mare’s mane as the wind whipped over his face, taking his breath away. 

“So Hazza, you got a girl back home?” Louis called. 

It took them a second to realize it, but the music had stopped, and the porch was quiet except the low laughter coming from their little group and the muttered chatter that had stopped suddenly with Louis’ bold inquiry. Zayn glanced at Hazza to see the faraway look was gone from his eyes, and he looked a little startled by the question. But after a short delay, he replied.

“Sorry, I never kiss and tell. But Niall over there is an open book.” Hazza smiled and nodded to the blonde doctor with a wink.

“Yeah?” Louis looked over to Niall, a mischievous grin on his face. “Well come on then. Spill.”

Zayn tuned out as Niall began to ramble on about his many sexual adventures back in his hometown. He still couldn’t seem to shake the image of Hazza riding Ghost from the drunken slur of this thoughts; lean-bodied and powerful, hair whipped back from the force of the wind, grinning wide because he’s going so fast it’s like he’s flying. 

 

***

 

Zayn didn’t remember falling asleep, but when he opened his eyes again, the lantern was blown out, and Niall’s nasally snores could be heard rumbling through the air like the call of a wild animal. The porch was quiet and dark, absent of everyone except himself and the blonde doctor who was dozing against the cabin wall with his hat settled down over his eyes. 

Zayn got up from his chair and stretched, hearing his bones crackle beneath his skin. His body was unsteady from the liquor and lumbering with sleep as he took one step at a time down from the porch onto the hard ground. About forty feet away, he could see the silhouette of a long-haired man sitting under an old oak tree, face lifted up to the sky. And before he even realized what he was doing, Zayn was walking over to him. 

“Hey.” Zayn sat down beside Hazza in the sparse grass, their shoulders parallel and their eyes trained forward. 

“Hey.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen a full moon like this,” Zayn said, more to himself than Hazza. He looked at it in the sky, hanging there like a giant, cratered Christmas ornament. So big and bright he thought maybe if they reached far enough, they could almost touch it… “Sometimes I just forget to look up, you know?”

Hazza didn’t respond, but Zayn could look at him and tell he was somewhere else. Frowning, lips pressed into a tight line, eyes a million miles away—Zayn knew that face, had seen it on Iz hundreds of times when they were kids and she got so lost in her own thoughts that everything else just faded away. 

So he kept quiet. Listened to the high wail of a train’s whistle off in the distance and waited.

“Thank you.” Hazza said after a while, his voice deep and gravelly like he hadn’t spoken in years. Zayn turned to him and saw that his eyes were on him; wide and unnervingly innocent, like a child trapped behind the chiseled face of a man. “You didn’t have to do this; welcome us into your life like this.”

The sincerity of the words took Zayn off guard. He felt heat rushing to his cheeks, lighting a fire under his skin that made him drop his gaze from Hazza’s slow-blinking eyes. “I made a mistake, not listening to you the first time.” Zayn cleared his throat, coughed loud and harsh, noticing the raised line of the cut on Hazza’s jaw even in the weak light of the moon. It was too shallow to need stitches, but in the process of healing, it had turned a dark, angry pink. “I won’t let that happen again.”

Hazza looked at Zayn for a long time, his expression unreadable until finally a grin split across his face, bringing out the smile lines next to his eyes. “I misjudged you, Sheriff.” He shifted in the grass until his long legs were stretched out in front of him and he was leaning back, supporting himself on his hands. 

“Really,” Zayn snorted and raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

Hazza’s grin widened impossibly, and he shook his head, the long curtain of his curls swaying with the movement. “I thought you were mean. A poor, bitter bastard with a stick up his ass—”

“Alright now,” Zayn warned.

“—but then I see you here with your friends, around the people you love, and you’re like a completely different person.” 

Zayn didn’t know how to respond to that. Didn’t want to. So instead, he said, “You barely know me.”

“I don’t have to know you,” Hazza replied, his expression unfazed. “I see what I see. And I see that you’re not so bad. Not as bad as people think you are.”

Zayn shook his head, suddenly regretting his decision to sit down and talk. But he didn’t get up and leave either. 

“Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe I am bad.”

“Hmm,” Hazza just hummed and bit back a smile, watching Zayn bristle. “And were you wrong? About me?” The question drifted up at the end like the dying whine of a train whistle. 

Zayn thought for a moment. Scratched at his head before speaking carefully. “No. I wasn’t wrong…” He saw hurt flash in Hazza’s eyes, just for a split second. But by the time Zayn blinked, the doctor’s face was neutral again, unbothered. “I never hated you. And I never thought you were…bad. I just—” Zayn shook his head, couldn’t remember how he’d gotten to this point; fumbling through his words under the gaze of a stranger. “I can’t figure you out.”

Hazza’s response was slow, but when he said the words, they were simple and sure. “Maybe you’re not supposed to figure me out.”

Zayn pressed his lips together, feeling that electric shock run up the back of his neck again, prickling over his skin like a thousand tiny needles. “Yeah,” Zayn said, leaning his head against the old tree trunk and letting his eyes drift shut. “Maybe.”


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I've said this before - about this fic not being historically accurate - but in this chapter especially I really just tossed it to the wind. Like they aren't driving cars and flying to the moon or anything, but I guarantee that if you started picking apart the inaccuracies in this, the whole thing would probably just fall apart lol. But it's for fun, and I hope nothing is so blaring that it gets in the way of the reading. Enjoy and please let me know what you think!

Zayn wasn’t really sure whether it was a unanimous unspoken decision between himself, Louis, and Liam, or whether they just didn’t bother to stop it from happening…but after that night, Niall and Hazza became a permanent infrastructure of their little group. 

Niall was loud like Louis, and liked to have fun, no matter what they were doing. He told jokes and did impressions and quickly became notorious for how quickly he could charm a woman into his arms. 

“The trick is to be sincere,” Niall explained one night, shortly after securing himself a date with Ruth; a gorgeous blonde with a perfect smile. “The more honest, the better.”

Hazza—well, he kept things interesting. 

“Haz, you’ve been nursing that same beer all night. I had no idea you were such a lightweight.” Louis joked. They were all sitting around one table in the Saloon, laughing and clapping to the music, sloshing their beers over the table and clinking glasses. Zayn had lost count of how many beers he’d downed, but he couldn’t feel his lips. Liam, Louis, and Niall were in the same boat; red-faced and sweaty with lopsided smiles on their faces. 

“I just don’t feel much like drinking, is all.”

“Bullshit,” Louis laughed. He waved over a waitress and motioned to Hazza with wild, jerky hand motions while talking into her ear.

“Louis, what are you doing?” Zayn slurred. He’d been far more drunk in his lifetime, but he still felt like he might fall out of his chair if he moved just so.

“I was thinking we’d have a good ole’ fashioned drinking contest. What do you say, Haz?” Louis grinned almost wickedly as the waitress returned with a full tray of beers. Most everyone in the Saloon was already watching them, anticipating what was going to happen. 

Hazza glanced around him at all the eyes on them. For a moment, he looked nervous; eyes wide and cheeks pinking up fast as fists began to bang on tables, demanding competition. 

“Let me do it. You and me.” Zayn said quickly, pointing at Louis. “I always kick your ass anyway.”

“No—I’ve got this.” Hazza insisted, his lips suddenly pulling into a little close-mouthed smile as he glanced up at Louis. “Ready?” He grabbed a glass of beer from the tray and waited. 

“You don’t know what you’re in for, Styles.” Louis grabbed a glass, too, and they clinked them together before starting to down them at the same time, cheers and shouts erupting around the room. 

In all honesty, Zayn assumed Hazza would last through two beers. Maybe three. He was bigger than Louis, but there was just something about him that said he’d be the guy to throw in the towel after a bit of sloshing in his belly. 

Instead, four beers in Louis was starting to look a little green, while Hazza was still chugging. He smiled a little around the lip of his glass as some of it dribbled down his chin and chest. Most of the room had been shouting LOU-IS, LOU-IS, but when the tables began to turn, Niall stood up and did a drunken fist-pump, shouting HARR-Y, HARR-Y instead until the rest of the room caught on too. 

“Wait, who’s Harry?” Liam wondered aloud. And Zayn would have wondered along with him, but at that moment, Louis set his fifth beer glass down on the table and promptly blew chunks all over the floor. 

 

Another day, _Harry_ —which was apparently Hazza’s real first name—came bursting into the Sheriff’s office with frantic eyes and bloodied hands, screaming “Come quick!”

Turned out it was a pregnant woman—Mrs. Fields, the tailor’s wife—who was going into labor in the back room of their tiny wood cabin. There was screaming not only from her, but also from her three young children in the front room. Mr. Fields stood in the corner of the room desperately trying to light a cigarette with shaking hands. It was cramped, too hot to breathe, and a living nightmare. 

“What the hell did you bring me here for?” Zayn demanded, feeling himself come a bit undone as the smallest child clung to his right leg and pressed their snotty face to his pants. “Why are you even here? Where’s the midwife?”

Liam, who’d been sitting at the small kitchen table, cursed out loud as something black and skinny skittered across the floor. It was the family cat, most likely. “The town’s midwife died in her sleep last night.” Liam supplied. “There’s gonna be a burial for her tomorrow.”

Harry nodded along frantically, only a few stray curls bouncing around his face while most of his hair was tied up with a simple black ribbon. He kept his bloodied hands held in front of his chest, like they were broken. “Liam’s right. I’m the only one left who knows how to do this.”

A piercing scream rang through the air from Mrs. Fields yet again, and another, slightly older child grasped at Zayn’s left leg. The Sheriff nearly hollered when he said, “Well, Jesus, fucking do it then!”

“She won’t let me touch her!” Harry shouted back, sweat trickling down his forehead. “I started to help, but she pushed me away and kept asking for the old doctor. I told her he died weeks ago.”

“Christ,” Zayn breathed, beginning to panic a little himself. He looked over at Mr. Fields, who’d finally managed to light the cigarette and was puffing smoke out of a small window. “Mr. Fields, could you please try talking to your wife?”

The man shook his head, a nervous chuckle escaping his lips. “I’m not goin’ in there, son. That woman’s got the devil in her today.”

“Zayn!” Harry insisted, dancing on the balls of his feet. “I need your help.”

After a minute of psyching himself up, Zayn finally gave in. They left the children with Liam and went into the back room, but Zayn immediately wished he hadn’t. 

“Oh god I’m gonna be sick,” He sputtered, pressing his hand to his mouth and squeezing his eyes shut. But the sound of yet another blood-curdling scream had them flying wide open again.

“Mrs. Fields? Mrs. Fields, it’s Dr. Styles again.” 

Zayn watched in horror, and a bit of awe, as Harry slowly walked up to the woman on the bed. She was round as an over-ripened peach, and her legs were splayed open with only the bloody hem of her dress drooping between them. A young woman, which must have been one of the Fields’ older children, stood by her mother’s side, looking so pale she’d probably faint soon. 

“Get away from me!” Mrs. Fields screamed, kicking her feet like a madwoman. “Don’t touch me! I don’t know who you are—I want Doc. Jones!”

Harry looked to Zayn helplessly, with wide green eyes and pink lips opening and closing around the words he didn’t know to say. 

“Mrs. Fields, it’s Sheriff Zayn.” Somehow, he found his head and managed to speak calmly. He walked over to stand at the woman’s other side, across from her daughter, and held her small, sweaty hand. She looked at him, panic clear on her ruddy, drenched face. “Dr. Styles is very good at what he does, okay?” Zayn bit his lip, feeling a trickle of sweat run down his back. Stitching up a cut isn’t exactly the same thing as delivering a baby.

“I can trust him?” She asked, her voice much softer, but still weary with doubt as her gaze skittered over to Harry and back again.

Zayn’s gaze locked with Harry’s across the room for several seconds. The doctor was visibly holding his breath, waiting to exhale until Zayn spoke again.

“You’re in good hands.” Was all he said. And he offered the woman a small smile.

Several hours later, a healthy baby boy was born and given the name Theodore, after his grandfather. Mr. Fields was still smoking his cigarette in the front room, so Harry handed the baby to Zayn to hold first. Zayn stared into a pair of warm brown eyes that were looking at the world for the first time, and smiled.

 

***

 

There were moments—they came unexpectedly, and without warning—where Zayn saw something shine in Harry, like sun rays filtering through a cloudy sky. Warm, sweet, and pure. It was in the way his eyes crinkled when he tossed his head back, laughing at one of Louis’ jokes. Or the loud, surprised squawk he let out when Niall linked their arms together and danced around and around, waving his hat in the air. He saw it when he walked into Sawyer’s house for their weekly dinner tradition that evening, and Harry was standing by her side, singing and laughing as he chopped vegetables for her. 

“They’ve been staying here for two weeks,” Zayn said when Harry made a trip outside. “If they’re over-staying their welcome, just tell me and I’ll get them out of your hair.”

“Quite honestly, they’ve been a blessing around this place.” Sawyer replied, smiling at Zayn. “I appreciate your concern, darlin’, but having those boys here has been nothing but good. They keep me young.” 

 

***

 

When the rest of the boys arrived shortly after, they shared laughs and stories and ate until they felt they’d bust the buttons on their shirts. 

“I think I’m gonna have a baby,” Liam joked, settling his hands on his belly and giving a squinty-eyed chuckle. Louis grinned at him, scratched at the dark stubble on Liam’s cheek. 

After a while, Zayn excused himself to go wander out in the yard, walking off the heavy feeling in his limbs from eating too much. He ended up at the ruins of an old fence; one segment left of what used to span at least an acre in either direction. He climbed up onto the top rail and sat there, feet barely touching the ground as he looked out over a land cast in silver moonlight. It gave him peace somehow; knowing that no matter how old he got the moon still shone the same way and the stars still glittered in the same piece of sky night after night.

“What are you doing out here all by your lonesome, Sheriff?” 

Harry grinned, but walked up to him tentatively, like he wasn’t sure he’d be welcomed. He still wore all black, so his slender frame and dark hair nearly blended into the background.

“Hey Haz,” Zayn greeted.

Harry finally closed the gap between them, then glanced over his shoulder once or twice before speaking, like whatever he was going to say was top secret. “I made a bet with Louis.”

Zayn huffed and shook his head. “When are you going to learn to stop making deals with the devil?”

Harry laughed a little, then decided to climb up beside him. The wood creaked under the added weight, but otherwise held. “I told him I was a better shot than him.”

“Yeah?” Zayn raised an eyebrow. “Are you?”

Harry bit his lip, then suddenly reached around his waist and pulled a silver pistol from his holster without warning. Zayn startled, nearly falling off the fence. “Harry what are you—”

Harry frowned. “What? Oh—!” He grinned and tossed the gun into the air once, then caught it by the barrel.

“Jesus fucking—” Zayn jumped to the ground this time, pulling his hat down over his head and waiting for bullets to fly.

But Harry stood up idly, feet nestling into the grass beside Zayn’s head, and squawked out a laugh. “It isn’t loaded!” He gasped. When Zayn dared to look up at him, he had one hand clasped over his belly with the gun, while the other slapped his knee. 

“Give me the pistol, Harry.”

“Zayn—”

“Hand it over.”

 

***

 

“Okay, I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart. I’m doing it because I genuinely believe you might kill someone.” Zayn looked Harry in the eye until he nodded his understanding. After taking the pistol from his hands, Zayn had instructed Harry to line up a half dozen empty cans along the top railing of the fence. 

“Can I shoot now?” Harry asked, a glitter of excitement in his eyes. He made a grab for the pistol, but Zayn moved it out of reach.

“Nope. Watch me first.” Zayn took some ammo from his back pocket and loaded the gun carefully, explaining every step as he went along. “Okay, now that the gun’s loaded…and I hope this goes without saying, but I’m gonna say it anyway… Do not toss it, or twirl it, or point it towards anyone.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Obviously. Next lesson.”

So Zayn showed him the proper way to shoot, how to position his body and aim towards the target. He shot down all six cans without miss, blowing them off the fence with a satisfying clink. 

“Well, well. Liam told me you handled a gun better than anyone else in town, but now I’ve seen it for myself.” Harry grinned at him, dimple popping. 

Zayn pressed his lips together and fought off a smile. “Alright, come here. It’s your turn.” 

Zayn replaced the cans, then carefully handed Harry the pistol and stood back to watch. The first shot was way off. Up and over somewhere that was nowhere near any of the cans. Zayn could feel sweat trickle under his arms and down his back, but he urged him on, “Again, Haz, but be careful. Fix your form.”

He shot again, three more times, and managed to hit none of the cans. Louis and Liam whooped from the porch several yards away where they were playing cards with Niall and Xander. “The bet’s off, Curly, it’s not worth it!” Louis called, a teasing lilt to his voice. “I think you shot an owl out of a tree on that last one!”

Harry’s eyes widened, and his face fell, but Zayn just shook his head and stepped a little closer. “Ignore him, he’s being an ass. Look—” He wrapped a hand around Harry’s narrow wrist and adjusted the point of his arm, “Relax,” He reminded him, feeling the muscles of Harry’s forearm flex under his touch.

“I am relaxed,” He argued, but he rolled his shoulders anyway and took a deep breath. Zayn watched his brows furrow in concentration and the anxious biting of his bottom lip. He squinted his eyes and aimed with Zayn still at his side.

“Steady,” Zayn said, bracing a hand on Harry’s upper back. “Got your target?”

Harry nodded, curls bouncing along his shoulders. “I think so, yeah.” He pulled the trigger, and a bullet shot out, coming so close to one of the cans it probably shaved a little bit off the top. When Harry realized what he’d done, a grin split across his face, and he danced in place, buzzing with energy. His hip knocked against Zayn a little in the excitement, and despite himself, Zayn found that he was laughing. 

“Nice one. Almost got it that time.” He patted Harry on the back, feeling the hard muscle there and the line of his spine beneath his thin shirt. He dropped his hand and cleared his throat before continuing. “You do have to keep your eyes open, though.” 

“Shit, I’m kind of squinty I guess.” Harry worked to keep his eyes wide, even though they always got lost again when he smiled. “Is this what it feels like being Sheriff? Chasing bad guys, ducking behind over-turned tables at a shoot out—”

Zayn laughed again, surprising himself. “Yeah, a little bit I guess.” 

Twelve shots later, and—with Zayn’s help—Harry managed to hit all the cans except one. 

“Last one, Harry,” Zayn was actually enjoying himself, feeling something swell in his chest every time another can got knocked over. “You can do it.”

Harry shook out his feet a bit, pushed his hair back over his shoulders. His grip was sure, and his aim was steady with the pistol weighing heavy in his hand. He squared up his shoulders, and looked like he was about to shoot again, but instead he stopped and turned around to face Zayn. “Wanna make this more interesting?”

Zayn snorted. “What is it with you and bets?”

Harry’s face dropped and he poked his lip out, almost comically. “Humor me?” He asked.

Zayn sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “Alright, what’ve you got?”

“If I make this shot,” Harry grinned, drawing it out. “You show me a good place to have some fun in this sleepy old town.”

Zayn laughed. “Okay deal.”

Harry nodded, his jaw clenching as he faced forward, frowned at the can he was aiming for, and fired. 

 

***

 

Harry made the shot, so Zayn rounded up the boys and headed off a ways south to where the tree cover was a little thicker, and it was so pitch black they could hardly see two feet in front of them.

“It’s not much farther,” Zayn called back over his shoulder, stepping along the ground with careful, familiar steps. He could hear Harry breathing just by his ear, a little quickened and short, like the flutter of bird wings. 

They saw the light before they heard the music; a warm, yellow glow filtering through the slats of tree trunks, illuminating the weeping branches of the trees and the horses tied up out front of a narrow two-story wood cabin. The high melody of a fiddle became more and more clear as they approached, along with the whoops, hollers, and heavy stomps of men and women inside the cabin, drifting over the night like the thrumming beat of Zayn’s own heart. He hadn’t been to The Ways since he was a teenager, coming up every night to dance and drink with his friends and from time to time even take a trip up to one of the bedrooms to fumble his hands over a woman’s body for all the coins he had in his pocket.

As the group of them stepped closer and their faces were lit up by the glow, Zayn could tell Louis and Liam were remembering the same things. 

When they stepped through the front door, it was like the music and the stomping and the hollering exploded out at them, wrapping them up in the hot, drunken cocoon of the room. Just about every inch of the place was packed with bodies, hardened souls from the poor part of town who just wanted to forget their lives for a night and dance till the soles of their shoes fell apart. Zayn could feel his pulse thrumming along in his neck to the tune of the two fiddlers standing on a table near the back of the first floor, tapping along with their feet.

It was reckless, free, and _alive._

But it all stopped the moment they recognized Zayn. People started to scramble almost immediately, hopping out the windows, hiding under tables and behind overturned chairs. Like roaches scattering from the light. 

“I don’t want no trouble, Sheriff,” An enormous, meaty man with a dirty face walked up to the group of five men, a sneer on his lips and a shotgun resting on his shoulders. “I run a clean business here, ain’t got nothin’ to hide.”

“I know, Shirley.” Zayn offered him a smile, willing the man to remember him as the skinny, wide-eyed kid with the dark, floppy hair and quiet voice. “I’m not here as the Sheriff tonight. Just here to have a good time.”

Zayn, along with Louis, Liam, Harry, and Niall all held their breaths to wait for his response, their eyes dancing between the man’s beady little eyes to where his hand was resting heavy on the handle of the shotgun. It seemed like they waited hours before Shirley’s sneer turned to a wide, nearly-toothless grin and he clapped Zayn hard on the shoulder. 

“It’s good to have you back, then, kid.” Shirley turned around to the nearly empty room and banged the butt of his gun on the floor three times, hard, until he had everyone’s attention. “Sheriff’s just here to have a good time! Let’s show him one, eh?”

So the fiddlers started up again, the people came out of hiding, and the stomping of boots on the tired old hardwood resumed again like it had never stopped. 

They danced.

 

***

 

It was like time stood still in the old place. Deep in the ass-back of the woods, surrounded by barefoot women in threadbare dresses and men with rough, tan skin dirtied up from a day of hard labor. The night never seemed to end. Zayn watched as Niall tipped his head back to guzzle down the last of his beer, dripping most of it onto his shirt. His blonde hair was damp and matted to his forehead, and his face was a deep pink color as he lifted his empty glass above his head and whooped happily, his free arm linked with a young woman’s. Her hair red and wavy, falling to nearly the middle of her back. 

Louis and Liam had stayed and danced along with the rest of them for most of the night, but eventually they’d headed up the stairs to the bedrooms where a couple pieces of silver could buy you twenty minutes and a set of red-stained lips around your dick.

Zayn met Harry’s eyes across the room. 

With his long brown curls and handsome face, he made most of the women in the room swoon, flocking to him, moths to a flame. Zayn fared well with the women himself, but he felt a tug of amusement watching Harry try to talk his way out of a few exceptionally tight grips.

“I’m going out for a smoke,” Zayn hollered it over to Niall, but he wasn’t listening; too busy tonguing down the girl with the red hair.

 

The night air was cool. Zayn ran a hand through his damp hair, noting that it wasn’t slicked back anymore; the front part nearly reaching his chin. He left it there, hanging down and only partially covering his eye. When he took the first drag of his cigarette, he felt a calm settle in his bones, despite the never-ending ruckus going on inside. He blew out a cloud of smoke and watched from afar as a drunk man tried and failed to climb onto his horse. 

“Can I?” Harry was by his side then, skipping the greeting and nodding to his cigarette.

Zayn passed it, let Harry take a pull, and took another one himself. They both blew out the smoke at the same time. 

“Thought you’d be busy entertaining your ladies,” Zayn grinned over at Harry, noting the light sheen of sweat over his forehead and the way his eyes were blown wide from the alcohol. He’d had a few drinks himself, but not nearly as many as usual. They weren’t in the nice part of town anymore, and someone had to keep their guard up.

“Nah, I’ll leave that to Niall. He’s having way too much fun in there.” Harry slurred, laughing. “Shit, I’m surprised you even know about this place. With you being you and all.”

“Me being me?” Zayn raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

“A stick in the fucking mud.” Harry teased, leaning in closer so that Zayn could smell the liquor on his breath. “You need to loosen up some.”

Zayn laughed and shrugged away from Harry a bit, waving a hand in front of his face. “Yeah well you loosened up too much. You reek of booze.”

“I do?” Harry asked, his eyes getting so big they almost took over his whole face. He pressed a hand to his mouth and frowned.

“Mhmm.” Zayn nodded, taking one more pull from his cigarette before stomping it out under his boot. “I thought you didn’t drink?”

Harry shrugged. “I drink when I want, I don’t when I don’t. Life’s too short for absolutes.”

Zayn chuckled and glanced at Harry for a while, turning his head just the slightest to catch him leaning forward on the unsteady porch railing, his hands clasped together and his hair wild and twisty down his back. The golden glow from the house behind him illuminated parts of his face just so, while casting the rest in shadow. Zayn couldn’t read his eyes. 

“You’re not really a bad shot, are you?” He asked softly.

Harry bit back a smile, already cracking as he turned to Zayn. “Please don’t be mad?”

A laughed burst from Zayn’s chest before he could even realize it was happening. It was sudden and loud, like it had been punched out of him. Harry laughed too, but his was breathless, almost silent. Just an extra wide, crinkly-eyed grin that took over his whole face. Zayn clapped him on the back then, felt the hard muscle of his shoulder blades for the second time that night. 

“I can’t believe you hustled me, Styles,”

“Hustle is a bit harsh,” Harry chuckled, sweeping a lock of his hair behind his ear as they both finally settled down. Zayn’s hand was still on his back, and he could feel Harry’s breaths come and go, slower and slower until they were back to normal.

“But you did though. Hustle me.” Zayn insisted, his voice light, teasing even. “I’m not angry, Curly, I’m just wondering why?”

Harry looked at him, his face relaxed and thoughtful, eyelids blinking slow. “I am a bad shot. But I’m not that bad… Just wanted you to have some fun, is all. All the guys were in on it.”

“Those fuckers,” Zayn muttered.

“It’s just, I’ve noticed—we all have—that even when you seem like you’re having a good time, you’re just so…”

“Yeah?” Zayn urged him on, a bitter taste on his tongue.

“Distant.” Harry decided. “Always so distant. I thought maybe it was just because Niall and I were around, but when I talked to Louis and Liam, they said you’ve been like this for a while…”

“They said that?” Zayn felt something coil up inside of him, tight like a spring, and he was afraid of what would happen when it finally let go. 

Harry’s voice was low and sympathetic. His gaze never left Zayn’s face. “Yeah, they did.” 

“Help me out, Tommo! Fuck—he’s a lot heavier than he looks.” 

The screen door creaked open and Zayn and Harry both whipped their heads around at the sound of Liam’s voice. Zayn dropped his hand from Harry’s back like he’d been burned. 

“It’s that dead weight,” Louis grunted, holding onto Niall’s legs while Liam held the shoulders. The blonde was passed out, his head nodded down onto his chin. 

“Is he okay?” Harry asked, hurrying over to him to press a hand to his forehead and a finger to his pulse point.

“Just passed out,” Liam grunted, swinging the unconscious Niall over his shoulder in one big heave. 

“Looks like you guys had a nice time.” Harry smirked and nodded to their disheveled clothing. Liam blushed bright red, and Louis avoided Harry’s eyes. 

“Let’s head out.” Zayn announced, already starting down the porch. It was time to head back to Sawyer’s before they got any more incapacitated.

 

***

 

The next morning, Zayn woke up to Niall snoring hot air onto the back of his neck. He tried to pull away, but there was only so much room in the tiny bunk, and they were in the top one. Sawyer’s house was small, and the only way there was enough room for all of them was to share beds. It was sweaty and tight and uncomfortable, but it was still better than the cold hard cot waiting for him in the Sheriff’s office. 

After a bit of maneuvering his legs over the side, Zayn climbed down carefully from the bunk. One foot after the other on the creaking old ladder down the side. Liam and Louis were asleep on the bottom, barely stirring despite all the noise Zayn was making. Once his feet hit the cold hardwood, he scratched at his chest through his tank and stretched, hearing the crackle of his bones as he did so. To his right, he saw Xander’s bed where it was pushed against the wall. The covers were already remade and tucked in neatly at the corners, erasing any sign that it was slept in at all. Xander preferred to sleep in the hammock outside, a few yards out from the house, so Harry had slept in the bed—they’d all flipped a coin for it last night. Zayn looked over at it for a moment longer and then walked out of the room into the kitchen. 

There he found Harry standing up by the stove, heating a kettle and humming quietly to himself. His hair was tied up messily on the back of his head, his chest bare, and his pants hung low on his hips, showing off the dark laurel tattoos spread just above his pelvis. 

Zayn didn’t understand the way his heart skipped a beat then. But he chalked it up to the kettle suddenly screeching out a shrill whistle, high enough to get the hairs on the back of his neck standing. 

“Morning,” Zayn murmured, taking a seat at the table. He knew by the smile on Harry’s face that his hair must’ve been wild all over his head, sticking up at odd angles this way and that. 

“Morning,” Harry replied. “Making a bit of tea. Want some?”

Zayn rubbed at his eyes. “Sure, yeah.” He yawned aloud and squinted at the glittery morning sunshine filtering in through the threadbare curtains. The light caught in Harry’s hair, making it glow golden in some places. “Feeling hung-over, Curly?” Zayn asked it even though it was clear he wasn’t. All bright-eyed and fresh-faced, smiling as he poured hot water into two chipped mugs. 

“Nah, I’ve got a remedy for a hang-over.” He grinned. “I’d tell you but then I’d have to kill you.”

Zayn huffed. He took the tea Harry handed him a moment later and sipped the piping hot liquid to his lips. He wasn’t hung over either, but he did perk up a lot with the tea. 

A knock on the door behind him nearly had him spilling it all down his chest. 

It was loud an insistent, enough to wake the whole house if it carried on. Zayn set the mug down and sprung to his feet to open the door.

“What in the devil is wrong with you?” He hissed at the young boy standing on the porch, fist raised to knock again. “Do you know what time it is?”

The boy—he couldn’t have been any older than thirteen—shook in his shoes, quivered like a leaf. Even his lip trembled as he tried to speak again. “I-I work for the Wilsons. Th-there’s been a death, s-sir: Mrs. Wilson.”

Zayn’s heart dropped to his toes. Mrs. Wilson was the sweet old lady who brought candies and pies into town to sell once a week. Every time Zayn thought of summer, he thought of her sweet butterscotch candies that he’d keep stuffed in his cheek for hours, savoring every ounce of flavor. It was one of his fondest memories. 

“Give me one minute, kid. I’ll be right out.” He shut the door and ran into the back room to stuff his feet into his boots. Harry was right by his side before he could even start on the buttons of his shirt. 

“What happened?” He asked, pulling on his own boots. His hair was out of its bun now, hanging into his face as he fumbled with his laces. 

“Nothing, just some Sheriff business. Liam!” Zayn knocked his hand against the bottom of Liam’s foot where it was hanging off the bed. Louis was lying on his stomach beside him, drooling onto the pillow next to Liam’s cheek. Neither of them stirred. 

“You don’t have to wake him. I can come with you instead,”

Zayn stopped, his hat hovering in his hand just above his head. He turned to look at Harry, an amused chuckle in his throat. “You? You wanna come assist me with the death of an old lady?”

To his credit, Harry didn’t flinch. “Yes. I can help.”

Zayn didn’t have time to deliberate, and he definitely didn’t have time for Liam to rub the sleep out of his eyes and get moving, so Harry would have to do. “Fine.” He said, strapping his holster on. “But keep your mouth shut and your hands to yourself unless I say otherwise, you hear?”

Harry’s grin split across his face and he pulled on his shirt so fast he looked like a blur of black cloth. “I won’t let you down, Sheriff.” 

Zayn rolled his eyes and huffed, waiting for Harry to walk out before he shut the door to the back room once and for all. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s just get going.”

 

***

 

The boy led them to the Wilson’s house, which was located right on the edge of the better side of town. Close enough to the railroad tracks that every time a train went by, the house rattled like it might just fall to pieces.

“So tell me how it happened,” Zayn said. The three men—him, Harry, and Mr. Wilson—stood around the body with solemn stares. An elderly woman with silver flyaway hair lie crumpled before them in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, the back of her head bashed in and bloody. Harry knelt down to shut her eyes before Zayn could protest. 

“Well, just like I told the boys outside,” Mr. Wilson started. He was much older than his wife, nearer to eighty than to seventy. His teeth were nearly all gone, and his skin was pale and sweaty. He was a fairly well-off man; being one of the town’s original settlers, he made his money early from the mines and having a clever business mind. Silver rings on his bony fingers glinted in the weak morning sunshine, a reminder of his hard-earned status in the community. Zayn listened as best he could, trying to temporarily forget the dead woman at his feet. 

“Just as I told ‘em; she fell down them steps this mornin’ all at once. I heard her bones breakin’ ‘fore I could even catch her.” Mr. Wilson continued, dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief and wiping at the wiry whiskers under his nose. “That woman was the love of my life. I’ll never forgive myself for not getting to her in time.”

Zayn nodded solemnly, feeling the weight of the old man’s words on his chest. “I’m—” He coughed to clear his throat. “I’m very sorry for your loss. I know this wasn’t the way you wanted to see her go.” Zayn reached over to squeeze at the man’s shoulder, a sign of comfort, before calling to the men outside to come retrieve the body. 

“None of her bones are broken.” Harry said, looking up at Mr. Wilson. “Just the back of her head.”

“I don’t… I don’t understand what you mean, son.” Mr. Wilson shook his head, hand trembling as it brought the handkerchief to his eyes once again.

“There isn’t a single scuff on her.” Harry lifted the old woman’s arms one by one, examining them. “No bruises, no cuts.”

“ _Harry_.” Zayn hissed.

Two men—hired hands of Mr. Wilson’s—walked in the front door and reached for the body, their dirty hands soiling the pink of Mrs. Wilson’s dress as they lifted her and placed a tarp over her lifeless form.

“Stop them! Zayn—” Harry stood up so quickly he almost tripped over his own boot. His eyes were frantic, dancing from Zayn to Mr. Wilson to the old woman’s body being carried out the front door. “A word, Sheriff?” He gritted, storming past Mr. Wilson and into the kitchen.

Zayn was so mad he swore he could feel steam coming out of his ears. He nodded a tight smile towards Mr. Wilson and excused himself into the kitchen after Harry. 

“What happened to keeping your mouth shut and your hands to yourself?” Zayn hissed the moment he caught sight of Harry. He was standing in the middle of the kitchen, arms crossed tight over his chest, brows set into a frown. He glared right at Zayn, jaw clenching tighter with every passing second. “Harry, that man out there is grieving! You asking him pointless questions right now doesn’t do him any good.”

“Did you forget I’m a doctor? That I might know a little something about dead bodies?” Harry poked Zayn in the chest, hard. Hard enough to leave a mark. “You’ve known these people so long you can’t even entertain the thought that this might not have been an accident.”

The breath left Zayn’s lungs like he’d been punched. “You think he _killed her_?”

“There’s no blood on the steps, Zayn.” Harry hissed, eyeing the door like somebody might hear them. “The wound was clotted up already, and there isn’t a drop of blood anywhere. Someone dragged her—”

Zayn backed away from him, shaking his head before he could even formulate a response. “You’re wrong, Harry. Just go home.”

 

Zayn went outside to find Mr. Wilson watching on the street as his wife was loaded onto a wagon in front of a nosy crowd of townspeople, all standing on their tip toes to get a glance of the dead woman. 

“Get out of here!” Zayn shouted, walking up to the wagon, shooing them away. “Have some respect, would you? Get the hell out!” He sighed and removed his hat as they all scattered. Fucking vermin some of them were.

“Headed off to the coroner’s now, Sheriff.” One of the men said from the front of the wagon. He already held the horse’s reigns in one meaty hand. Just seemed to be waiting for the go-ahead from Zayn. 

“Alright, alright. I’ll come with you.” Zayn put his hat back on and turned around to wave one last time to Mr. Wilson, but instead he caught sight of Harry kneeling on the front porch in front of the young boy who’d brought them to the house that morning; listening to something the kid was whispering into his ear. “For Christ’s sake,” Zayn cursed under his breath.

“Sheriff?” The man on the wagon asked.

“Just a minute.”

 

The moment Zayn started walking towards Harry, three things happened. The kid took off around the house, Harry followed him, and Mr. Wilson shouted something unintelligible at them both. 

Zayn’s heart thundered in his chest as he raced after Harry. He was faster than he looked, and Zayn had to push himself that much harder to keep up. They were headed towards some old shack-looking structure behind the Wilson’s house. The kid got there first, and stopped before pushing open the door. But when Harry caught up, he forced his way inside, just as someone else—a pale, gangly man with wild black hair—squeezed his way through a narrow window and high-tailed it, Harry right on his heels.

“Who in the living fuck?!” Zayn shouted, feeling his hat fly off his head as he willed his feet to move faster. He could hear people hollering out something behind him, but he ignored them. The pale stranger was running straight for the train tracks, and Harry was following him there. 

 

***

 

Every morning, a freight train passed by the town at 9:52 am. As reliable as a summer sunrise. Barreling down the tracks, piercing the wind, blowing its whistle loud enough to turn a dog mad with the sound of it. Every morning at 9:52am to just about 10, the train passed their town and headed to the next. It wasn’t one of the ones that stopped or dawdled around for a while to unload. This one moved with a purpose.

So it was unusual when, at just after 9:53am, the tracks were seemingly wide open. No sign of a train anywhere—but you could hear it. Screaming out that steam whistle, just as shrill and spine-tingling as the boiling tea kettle Harry’d had on the stove earlier. The whistle was all they could hear, coming in fast from the left; a warning to any poor, stupid soul still plucking around the tracks to get the hell out of the way. 

But Lazarus Wilson—the pale man from the shack with the wild hair and his mother’s blood staining the front of his shirt—either didn’t hear the warning or didn’t care, because he hopped over the tracks and kept moving like a man possessed. 

 

***

 

“Harry stop!” Zayn screamed over the cry of the train whistle, but it was no use. He was neck and neck with him now, running like hell on ground that was already rumbling with the train’s approach. Their shirts billowed out from their back, and Harry’s hair flew wildly away from his face; thick as a lion’s mane, but not so thick that Zayn couldn’t see the train speeding towards them, black as death and just as quick. The tracks were so close; it was _now or never_ and neither one of them were slowing down. 

With a leap and a prayer, they made it over just as the shriek of the train whistle reached its loudest point and the wheels thundered over the tracks where they’d just been. Zayn’s heart was beating so fast it felt like it might break through his chest. He sat back in awe, feeling his whole body shudder with the force of the passing train. He felt like he was seeing a ghost.

But Harry was already back on his feet, seemingly unaffected as he raced towards Lazarus. “Come on! We’ve almost got him!” He shouted. And Zayn couldn’t do much more than suck in a breath and scramble after him. 

 

***

 

They caught Lazarus Wilson not five minutes later after he tripped over his own shoelace and face-planted in the dust. He rolled onto his back and spat at them, laughing high and crazed as Harry held him down and Zayn cuffed him. The entire front of the man’s shirt was covered in blood, and they found long strands of silver hair stuck to his clothes, making it pretty obvious that Mrs. Wilson’s death was not an accident, after all. They locked him up—along with his father, who’d tried to cover for him—and they’d both await trial behind bars.

“I owe you an apology, Curly.” Zayn said when it was all over and they were walking back to Sawyer’s—Lazarus hadn’t stopped mumbling and cackling to himself since they locked him up, and hell if Zayn was going to try and sleep with that shit going on three feet away. 

Harry said nothing, only clasped his hands behind his back and walked with a satisfied smirk on his face, waiting.

Zayn sighed. “I should’ve listened to you about Mrs. Wilson, okay? You out-Sheriffed me today.”

Harry snatched Zayn’s hat from his head—they’d retrieved it from the dust after they’d stumbled back into town dragging their perp—and stuck it on his own head with a grin. “Sheriff Styles has a nice ring to it.”

Zayn nodded. The hat looked better on Harry anyway. “Yeah, alright.”

“We make a good team.”

“A what?”

“ _We make a good team_. I’m serious.” Harry said, shoving lightly at Zayn’s shoulder. “Partners in Law Enforcement.” He grinned.

“I already have a partner, remember? Liam.” Zayn chuckled.

Harry rolled his eyes and tossed the hat back to Zayn so it landed lopsided on his head. “Yeah, well no one ever said you couldn’t have two.”


	4. Four

**Two Weeks Later**

The James’ house was the biggest one on the street; impossible to miss, especially when the lights were on and it was lit up like a Christmas tree. Family dinner. That’s what they called it, but it felt more like a mandatory black tie event.

“How do I look? Is my tie crooked?” Liam panicked suddenly as they were walking up to the door. “He hates when my tie’s crooked—Louis?”

“You’re tie’s fine, you big dope.” Louis laughed lightly and shook his head. “Let’s just get this over with boys, shall we?”

 

Zayn, Louis, and Liam entered the house and handed their hats and coats to the older man with the kind smile standing by the door. “Thanks Vince,” They all echoed.

It seemed like every light in the house was on, and there was someone playing the piano quietly in the drawing room, which they entered next. There they found Mrs. James, Isabelle, and various extended family members settled around the room on plush couches, sipping champagne and laughing no louder than the slight clinking of their empty glasses as they placed them on silver serving trays. Aunt Priscilla was seated at the baby grande, eyes closed as her knobby fingers fluttered over the keys.

“Ah, boys!” Mrs. Meredith James—an older woman with hard lines around her mouth and watery hazel eyes—stood with a glide of her gloved hand in their direction. “Lovely to see you. Please have a seat; dinner is almost ready.”

Zayn found a spot next to Isabelle, and greeted her by bowing and kissing her hand. It was weird—completely wrong—but she smiled and didn’t make fun of him. 

“Hey Stranger,” She said, eyes glittering as she looked at him. She was dressed in a heavy mint green dress and she looked rosy-cheeked and young. “Been a while,”

“I’ve been a little busy,” Zayn admitted, laughing quietly. He wanted to elaborate, but he didn’t know what else to say.

“Official Sheriff business, right?” Iz raised an eyebrow and gave a short laugh. 

“I—”

“It’s okay.” She sighed, subtly kicking his leg with the toe of her boot. “I never wait, remember?”

Dinner was announced a moment later, before Zayn could think of anything to say back. He had been busy, but not so busy that he couldn’t have come to see her. It wasn’t something he’d done on purpose; more like, in his mind, the Iz with the fancy dresses and ladylike manners and painted lips never seemed real to him. She was a dream, something intangible and fleeting you only saw once in the flesh. When he was with her, he didn’t expect to see her again. Not until the next moment they came face to face and she lured him back in, always under her spell. 

 

Dinner was spread before them on silver platters atop an immaculate white tablecloth. The dining room was the largest room in the house, and yet with twelve people cramming into their seats, and the house staff pulling out chairs and dancing around the corners of the space with trays held above their heads, it started to feel a bit crowded to say the least. Zayn felt prickles of sweat at the back of his neck and under his arms as he tried to get comfortable, wedged between Louis and Uncle Joe. He wasn’t the Sheriff there; he was just Zayn. A skinny boy with big eyes who everyone ignored because he didn’t really belong there in the first place.  
Except Iz; she was seated opposite of him, openly staring him down with an unreadable expression.

But all in the room came to a halt when the double doors opened and Mayor Jackson James walked in, wearing a black suit and a toothy grin. 

“How y’all doing tonight, family?” He asked, his voice big and booming as ever. He was tall and in relatively good shape for his age, maneuvering around the room with ease more or less. The silver at his temples seemed to shine under the light of the chandelier. 

The room chorused with various responses of “Doin’ just fine!”, “Hey there Jack!”, and “Where’ve you been hiding out all night?”

“Boys,” Jack smacked the back of Louis’ head with the flat of his palm, then did the same to Zayn and Liam, waiting as they stood to greet him properly. Firm handshakes and murmured ‘hellos’. “Evening, fellas. Good to see you here.”

 

Dinner started the moment Jack sat down at the head of the table across from his wife at the other end. The first, second, and third courses were served over loud conversation and the drunken guffaws of the Jack and the Uncles. Uncle Joe seemed especially lively that night; barely keeping his mouth closed long enough to chew, and spilling enough crumbs into his beard to last a family of birds through winter. 

Zayn couldn’t shake Iz’s stare the entire night. It was like her eyes were boring into his soul or something. He glanced at her every now and again to find her looking right at him, eyes on fire behind an otherwise blank expression. This happened time again until he looked up at one point to see that she wasn’t even there anymore. 

“Where are you going?” Louis asked, a panic in his voice as he saw Zayn stand up and place his napkin on the table. “Don’t leave me here!” He hissed.

But Zayn ignored him. Just lifted his hand and muttered a half-hearted ‘excuse me’ to a room of people who weren’t even paying attention. He left through the double doors of the dining room and almost bumped into one of the staff before darting into the hallway, searching for fiery eyes and a mint green dress. 

 

***

 

He found her in an abandoned sitting room on the southwest end of the house, as far from the dining room as she could manage. The only light in the room was the pale glow from the moon streaming in through the open window. She was sitting on the sill, one leg crossed over the other, blowing cigarette smoke out into the night air. For a moment, Zayn just stopped and looked at her, feeling an overwhelming sense of nostalgia for the young girl with the scarred up knees who cursed like a sailor and snuck outside with him at night to smoke stolen cigarettes and name all the stars in the sky. 

“You found me,” She said, without turning to face him. “Nice job.”

“It’s better in here.” He sat down across from her on the sill, staring at the exposed curve of her neck, left prone as she balanced her head against the window frame. “That my cigarette?”

She grinned then, slow and self-satisfied. “Yep. Stole them from your coat.”

“Did you at least steal me one, too?”

“I did, but I smoked it already.” She smiled at him and mashed her cigarette in a glass bowl by her knee that she’d clearly been using as an ash tray. “Can you hold me, Zayn?”

Zayn was caught off guard, not by her request, but by the slow, soft, bittersweet tone of her voice. Her eyes glimmered in the moonlight, not even looking at him, just gazing up at the sky. She looked like a work of art. So much so that he felt almost angry that he couldn’t paint her, capture the moment forever in brushstrokes of blue and silver. 

“Can you just hold me?” She asked again. So Zayn opened his arms and let her crawl into them, her dress knocking the glass bowl of ashes into the bushes outside with a sharp thud. She fell against his chest and clung there for a moment, her skin surprisingly cold.

He wanted to ask if everything was okay, but it didn’t seem right. She asked him to hold her, so that’s what he did. He held her until holding became nuzzling and nuzzling became their lips pressing together hard and desperate. Mouths opening to one another, tongues fighting their way in. There was heavy breathing, and hair pulling and fingernails scratching into skin. It wasn’t sweet, and it wasn’t quite sexy, but when they finally pulled away, Iz had her usual glitter back in her eyes, and her bruised lips were lifted up into a smirk. “Go on then. I think I hear someone calling you,” She said, nodding over to the door. 

When Zayn stepped out of the sitting room and closed the door behind himself, he practically collided into Liam. 

“Ow,” He muttered, rubbing his chest with a grimace. “What the hell?”

“Jack’s called us to his study.” Liam said quickly, already grabbing hold of Zayn’s arm and pulling him towards a back staircase. “Come on,”

 

***

 

Zayn smoothed his hair back out of his face before following Liam into Jack’s study. A room which really just consisted of leather chairs, booze, and cigar smoke with a few half-empty bookshelves lining the walls in an attempt to keep up the guise. They could see Louis and Jack already there, along with a couple of the Uncles, seated around a dark mahogany round table, squinting through heavy smoke and sipping glasses of brown liquor on the rocks. A member of the staff poured Liam and Zayn glasses before they even had the chance to ask for them. 

“Glad you could join us.” Jack muttered around the end of his cigar. He was playing some sort of card game with one of the Uncles, and apparently he was losing because he cursed aloud. “Word from the wise; never play a damn thing against this son of a bitch because he wins every fucking time! Shit, Bill!” He thundered, tossing his cards down on the table and shaking his head with a hearty laugh.

Zayn, Liam, and Louis plastered tight smiles on their faces as the older men erupted in deep, bellowing chuckles.

“See, that’s what family is, boys.” Jack said, once they’d all calmed down. He leaned forward and pointed one meaty finger towards the Uncles while addressing the three young men. “These fellas didn’t know me from Adam when I married the Missus. I ain’t got blood of my own, ‘sides my kids. But they welcomed me into their homes with open arms. Called me brother. And now I return the favor.” Jack lifted his glass in cheers, and everyone else followed. Zayn watched the way the low light of the room caught in the glass and sent shimmering white figures dancing on the walls. 

“To family,” Jack toasted.

And the immediate reply back; “To family,”

“I’ve got big plans for this town, boys.” Jack continued, huffing out a cloud of cigar smoke that burned Zayn’s eyes. “Thirty years it’s been standing strong since the last fire. On three separate occasions in this town’s history, the whole of it has burned to the ground, leaving folks homeless with nowhere to go and nowhere to keep their children out of the sun. But these folks were determined. They had heart. And they rebuilt this town time after time because it was their home, and they were proud of it, whether the streets were paved in gold or paved in ashes. I believe we can harness that kind of passion and make it into something bigger than we ever dreamed…”

The room was quiet, all eyes on Jack as he blinked, staring at something just over Louis’ shoulder. Something far away, invisible to everyone else. He didn’t say anything again for what seemed like hours, but when he did, it was as if the speech he’d just given had never happened.

“Zayn, Liam. Talk to me. What’s going on in my town as of late.” He said, all business again, meaty fingers steepled over his stomach as he waited. 

So they gave him a run down of the town happenings over the past couple weeks. Generalizing for the most part, but elaborating when necessary. Jack remained quiet and nodded along with it all to the end, his face thoughtful.

“This Styles fella…what’s he doin’ runnin’ around with you boys? Far as I understood, he was a doctor. Meant to be busy with doctorin’-type things, ain’t that right?” 

Zayn felt his mouth dry up, his tongue suddenly sticking to the roof of his mouth. He swallowed, nodded. “Yes sir, but—uh—we’ve worked out a system. Or not a system, but—” He dug his fingernails into his thigh, forcing himself to take a breath. “He comes in handy, sir. When people are hurt or there’s been a shooting. If he’s with us when we show up, he can help them faster than if we waited for him to come from across town.”

Jack looked at Zayn for a long while, brow raised, cigar hanging out the side of his mouth, before he simply grunted and turned to Louis. “You ready to give me an answer about that job in Town Hall yet? I won’t hold it forever.”

Louis glanced up at his father, then at Liam, then down at his hands. “I gave you my answer already.”

“Look me in the eye when you’re talking to me, son.” 

Louis looked up at Jack then, the same fire in his eyes as his sister had in hers earlier that evening. “I don’t want the job. I’m fine where I am at the bank.”

Father and son stared at each other then, rattlesnakes ready to strike, until Jack’s face split into a grin and he chuckled under his breath. “My own son. My blood.” He said, staring Louis directly in the eye. “I took Zayn and Liam in off the streets, brought them into my home as strangers and raised them side by side along my own children and yet—they have more respect for me than my flesh.”

One of the Uncles tried to excuse himself at this point, but Jack waved for him to sit back down. 

Louis exploded, his face pinched around piercing blue eyes. “I wish I wasn’t your son, you brute! You’re just a mean old man, a—”

“Watch it, boy.” Jack interrupted, his voice quiet. 

Zayn felt the leatheriness of it slither up his back and tighten around his neck, that voice. The sound that made all three boys stop in their tracks, blood running cold to stuttering hearts. It made Zayn hold his breath and fight not to close his eyes. Louis’d gone silent, jaw slack, eyes wide. They waited.

“I’m not an enemy you want to make, son.” Jack continued, his entire demeanor calm as still water. “Remember that.”

“Yes sir.”

 

***

 

Zayn, Liam, and Louis left the James’ house in silence. Louis walked between the other two, fighting back tears that he refused to shed, and that neither one of his friends would mention. 

 

***

 

They split up after a while, Louis and Liam heading off to their shared apartment across from the bakery, and Zayn continuing on in the direction of the Sheriff’s office. But his feet dragged, kicking rocks instead of taking him home. He found himself in front of Niall and Harry’s shop before he realized what he was doing. _S &H’s, Healing Hands and Remedies_. They’d finally given it a name a week ago; all five guys helping to nail the sign over the door and paint the letters green. They’d gone to celebrate after at the Saloon, drinking until they couldn’t remember what the occasion was anymore, and they were just having a good time. 

The light was on when Zayn pushed his way inside, and he heard a bell jingle above his head with the motion of the door. Niall was with a young boy and his mother, cleaning the kid’s knee up where he’d just finished stitching the skin, and chatting idly with the woman. He turned to look at Zayn over his shoulder when he heard the bell.

“Hey, look who it is!” 

“Hey Niall,”

Niall patted the kid’s knee and told him to be careful. Then he accepted payment from the boy’s mother with a grateful nod of his head. 

“Where’s Harry?” Zayn asked once the mother and son had already left—but not before they greeted the Sheriff with a smile and a wave on their way out. 

Niall laughed, shook his head as he put his instruments away. “Unbelievable, you. No _how’s it going, Niall?_ No _how’s your day been, buddy?_ Always about Harry with you, innit?”

Zayn rolled his eyes, but smiled. “How’s your day been, buddy?”

“It’s been a shit-storm.” He chuckled, his voice light-hearted despite the tired expression on his face. “Crying babies, grown men afraid of needles, and an old lady who threw up all over my shoe before I could even ask her what was wrong.”

“Sounds lovely.” Zayn smirked.

“Yeah,” He grinned, scratching through his blonde hair and frizzing it up on the top. “And don’t you look dapper tonight! How was the family dinner?”

Zayn shrugged, mussed his hand through his own hair, letting it fall down over his eye again. “‘Bout what I expected.”

“Sorry to hear that.” Niall didn’t press it, and Zayn loved him for that. “Harry’s out on a house call. He’ll be back in—well shit, there he is now.”

Zayn turned to see Harry through the window, hopping down from Ghost with a leather satchel swung over his shoulder and his curls wild from the ride. He hitched her to a post and walked in through the door, leaning forward and shaking his hair out, not unlike a wet dog. When he stood up straight again, his eyes settled on Zayn, trailing over his suit and shiny black shoes before finding his face. “Hi,” Was all he said, a little breathlessly.

“Hey, uh—I came to visit.” Zayn smiled, looking to Niall, then back at Harry. “How was the house call?”

Harry gave a long sigh and set his satchel on his desk. “Well, I’ve had better… I just came from the Saltman’s house, and their daughter had a nasty infection on her foot that’s been getting worse and worse, and…” Harry shook his head and turned to one of the shelves to fumble around with jars of herbs and tiny vials of odd-colored liquids. Zayn suddenly noticed the specs of dried blood along Harry’s forearm and the way his hands were trembling so badly he could barely use them. “I had to take her foot before the infection spread to her blood and killed her.” He said, finally settling on one small jar of a brownish herb to stuff into his satchel.

“Harry,” Niall breathed, coming to his side immediately, bracing his hands on his shoulders. 

But Harry shook his head. “I just want to think about something else, okay?” He murmured, looking over at Zayn with wet eyes. “How was dinner with the Mayor?”

“It was alright, Curly. Very fancy.” Zayn murmured, feeling something tear within him. The night had been so terrible already; all he wanted was to see Harry’s smile light up his face again. “Liam and Louis were there, but you wouldn’t have liked it. Just a bunch of rich, pretentious snobs with their noses up in the air.”

A surprised giggle escaped Harry’s lips with that. His tired face transformed into a gasping grin in seconds, eyes getting lost in the squint of his smile. 

“They probably don’t even know what their own feet look like,” Zayn added, a smirk spreading across his face. “Strutting around like overstuffed hens in a chicken coop.”

All three men laughed at that. Hard and loud, hollering with tears running down their cheeks. By the time they all settled down, the atmosphere was relaxed and easy, lopsided grins on their faces as they wiped their eyes.

“You headed back to Sawyer’s?” Harry asked Zayn.

“’S that where you’re going?”

“Yeah, I promised to watch the house for her while she’s away.”

“Away?” Zayn frowned.

“You don’t remember? She went to visit her sister in Mississippi.” Harry explained. “She said she doesn’t know how long she’ll be gone.”

“Hey, well if you’re just headed back to the cabin, put that jar of herbs back. We’re running low.” Niall called from where he was turning off one of the oil lamps on his desk. 

Harry rolled his eyes. “I need it for soup tonight. And I found some more of it the other day, so stop nagging.”

“I am not nagging!”

“You’ll shut up when you taste how good it is.” Harry grinned. “Just like granddad used to make, remember?”

Niall smiled across the room. “Yeah, I remember, Haz.” He said. “But I’m not going back to Sawyer’s. I’m sleeping here tonight.”

“Here?” Zayn raised an eyebrow. He’d been up to the loft above the shop, and aside from a few spiderwebs, a trunk of Doc Jones’ old stuff, and a lumpy straw mattress on a rickety bed frame, there wasn’t much up there. 

“You’ve got a girl waiting,” Harry grinned, pointing a finger at Niall. “Don’t you!”

Niall didn’t try to deny it. Instead, he shrugged and tipped an invisible hat to them in a half-assed bow. “Finish locking up for me, would ya? Night, gentleman!” He rushed up the stairs before Harry or Zayn could protest, and they both had a good laugh over it. 

“Come on, let’s get out of here before we hear something we don’t wanna hear.” Harry made a face and turned off the last lamp before grabbing his keys and locking the door behind them once he and Zayn were both standing outside. The beautiful sable mare tied up on the post made a happy sound in her throat when she saw Harry. 

Harry looked at Ghost, then looked at Zayn, and sighed. “Guess we’re walking,”

 

***

 

Zayn was always amazed at how easy it was with Harry. Talking, or not talking. Walking a mile and a half on foot because Zayn never wanted to ride a horse. It came natural between the two of them, like they’d grown up listening to the nuances of each other’s voices and memorizing every little expression that passed over their faces. That night, walking back to Sawyer’s cabin in the darkness that came once you passed the railroad tracks, Zayn realized it was the first day in over a week that they hadn’t spent together. _We make a good team_ , Harry’d said. And ever since then, that’s what they’d been. Harry, Zayn, Liam—and sometimes just Harry and Zayn—roaming the town day after day, going from house calls to the scene of a break-in or the middle of a shot-firing misunderstanding between neighbors. Harry didn’t urge Zayn to keep a cool head like Liam did. Instead, most days Harry edged Zayn into a fury, getting his pulse thumping in his ears, making him see red instead of those gleaming green eyes. They argued over stupid things, and worked each other’s nerves, but they also laughed and goofed around and helped one another out. It was addicting, in a way, Zayn thought; having someone around who understood him so well and who kept him on his toes at all times. Addicting enough that when they weren’t together, something just didn’t feel right. 

“Did you eat much at the James’?” Harry asked when they finally made it to the cabin. They walked inside and Harry turned on an oil lamp before strapping his satchel over the back of a chair. 

Zayn shrugged, scratched at his neck. His suit was itchy and he was starting to wish he’d stopped and changed before walking all the way out there. “Yeah, but it wasn’t much. I could eat again.”

“Okay,” Harry smiled, fumbling with the top buttons of his shirt. “‘M gonna go wash up. I’ll be back.”

Zayn averted his eyes as Harry gave up on the buttons and pulled the shirt over his head altogether, tossing it on one of the empty seats before walking out the back door. 

In the next few minutes before he returned, Zayn took the liberty of shedding his scratchy suit and borrowing a pair of pants and a shirt hanging on the clothes line outside along the left of the house. He couldn’t see Harry, but he could hear him humming over the splash of water in the wash bowl. 

When Harry returned inside, scrubbed clean and smelling of soap, it was Zayn’s turn to wash. And by the time Zayn came back in, Harry was already stirring a big metal pot of something on the stove. It smelled sharp and spicy, opening up Zayn’s airways and clearing his head. Harry took a bowl out to Xander, who insisted on eating outside by his hammock—he never took much to Zayn, for whatever reason, but he liked Harry just fine.

Harry and Zayn set their places at the table, and when they finally sat down to eat, it was delicious. Zayn told Harry so in between loud, slurping spoonfuls.

“It was my Granddad’s recipe,” Harry smiled, watching as Zayn shamelessly lifted the bowl to drain the last of the broth into his mouth. “He wasn’t the warmest man, and he didn’t talk much, but he’d make it for us when we had a bad day.”

“Your grandfather raised you?”

“Yeah. My mom died when I was young.” Harry said.

“I’m sorry,”

“Me too.”

They washed their bowls in silence and settled back down at the table again, Zayn shuffling a deck of cards idly in his hands without ever voicing a desire to play. 

“So how was it really? The dinner?” Harry asked after awhile. His chin was balanced in his hands, and his curls were falling into his face, but he didn’t move to fix them. Just watched Zayn with that slow-blinking gaze that always got him talking, like some sort of truth serum. 

Zayn sighed. Shrugged one shoulder. “I grew up in that house. It holds so many memories from my childhood, and my teenage years…good memories. But now, it’s just…”

“Yeah?” Harry urged him on.

But even with those eyes settled on him, wide an innocent as a week-old kitten, Zayn shook his head. “Nothing,” He sighed. And after a few seconds’ delay, he only mumbled, “I kissed Isabelle though. She snuck off from the party and I followed her and kissed her.”

“Oh,” Something cloudy passed over Harry’s face then. “Is that the girl everyone thinks you oughta marry?”

Zayn dropped the deck of cards onto the table and scrubbed the heels of his palms over his eyes. “Yea, I s’pose so.”

Harry’s voice was flat, almost icy. “So why don’t you?”

“’S complicated, Haz.” Zayn mumbled. 

“What’s so complicated about it?” He threw back. “If you’re so crazy about her—crazy enough to sneak around kissing in secret—then why don’t you just marry her?”

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Zayn demanded, glaring at Harry as he stood and disappeared into the back room without another word. Zayn got up and followed after him. “Haz!”

Harry was already tugging his shirt over his head when Zayn walked into the room. He was facing away from the door; only the muscles of his back visible, rippling under his skin along the subtle bumps of his spine as he arched into the movement and finally dropped the shirt to the ground. Zayn felt all the words he’d been ready to say disappear into thin air. 

“Haz,” He said instead, softer now as he approached him. “Haz,” But Harry wouldn’t respond; just climbed into the single bed on the right side of the room and pulled the covers up over his head so Zayn couldn’t see his face.

 

***

 

The night was unbearably quiet. Unusually so, for the country. There was no hoot from a barn owl or song from a relentless cricket. Instead there was just heavy, uncomfortably numb silence that settled in his ears like an insistent, all-consuming pressure. Zayn tried to sleep on it at first; tossed onto his side, then his back, then his stomach. But he kept waking up, listening to the sound of Harry’s breathing—the only sound in the room whatsoever, besides his own. It was slow, and deep; predictable enough for Zayn to keep rhythm to it with a finger against his thigh, tapping on every exhale. 

It wasn’t until Zayn got so restless he could hardly stand it that he actually leaned over the edge of the top bunk where he lay and peered down at Harry. He noticed there was an oil lamp lit on a table by the bed, casting a weak glow that barely carried farther than the page of the book Harry was flipping through. He was still buried under the covers, but his head peeked out, curls dragging along the pages as he traced words with his fingers and mouthed them with his lips, a thoughtful frown on his face.

Zayn climbed down from the top bunk as quietly as possible, trying his best not to make a sound. But the wood creaked with his weight, and he hissed when his bare feet hit the cold floor.

“Is the light keeping you awake? Sorry, I can turn it off.” Harry glanced over his shoulder at Zayn, then reached out to the the oil lamp.

“No, no the light’s fine.” Zayn said quickly. “I just couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh,”

Zayn nodded, scratching the back of his head. “What’s that you’re reading?”

“A book.”

Zayn snorted. “Really.”

Harry let out a big breath then, enough to ruffle the pages and send the lamplight flickering. With an awkward sort of wiggle, he moved his long body over to the far right side of the bed, leaving half the mattress free. Harry looked at Zayn expectantly then, his gaze intense even in the barely-there light. 

“You want me to get in?” Zayn felt his heart start to thunder in his chest, beating so hard he felt light-headed with it. 

Harry nodded. He flipped the blankets back, an invitation. “Come ‘ere, I’ll show you.”

So Zayn climbed into the space Harry’d made for him; let himself be covered in cotton and wool, wrapped up in the remnants of Harry’s body heat still lingering in the sheets. Zayn could feel him, hot along his side—burning him like he’d edged too close to a live fire—but he soaked it up, wished he could feel it more intensely still. 

“It’s Whitman,” Harry said softly, turning another page in the book. Zayn could see then, what Harry was referring to, illuminated by the glow of the lamp. Words on top of words, tumbling into lines and stanzas, trailing down one page to start up on the other. Harry pressed his long fingers to them, flattened his palm over the crease down the middle. 

“Poetry,” Zayn smiled. “You like poetry?”

“Not if you’re gonna make fun of me for it.” Harry laughed quietly. “I read a lot of things.”

“Well… Read it to me.” 

Harry glanced over at him, a smile twitching at the corner of his lips. There was something ethereal about him in that dark room, light and shadow dancing over his face, making his eyes glow an almost amber color. His skin golden where it was exposed, and the tiny hairs on his forearms visible, standing on end.

Harry pushed his curls back in one graceful sweep of his hand and let it hang heavy on the right side of his face as he cocked his head and began to read the words aloud. 

 

***

 

**Two Days Later**

 

The Circus was coming to town. 

Not the _Ringling Bros._ , but a smaller, lesser known company called _The Pinnacle: Fantastic Acts and Terrifying Feats_. There’d been flyers floating around for months, long before Niall and Harry blew into town, but it was finally the day of the big event and suddenly Harry couldn’t keep his mouth shut about it. 

“Since when are you so into the circus?” Zayn asked after Harry finished another bout of excited rambling about monkeys and acrobats and Baby Face McGee. They were on their way to the circus tents at that very moment; set up about a mile out from the railroad tracks and looming in vibrant red and white against a blue sky. 

“My whole life, are you kidding?” Harry beamed, nudging Zayn in the ribs. “I haven’t been to one since my mother took me when I was three.”

Niall caught up to them then, his shirt buttoned up wrong and his hair wild on top of his head. “Why didn’t you wait for me!”

“I would have,” Zayn shrugged and looked at Harry.

“He didn’t want to wake up. I told him we’d leave without him.” Harry grinned. 

Niall huffed and redid the buttons on his shirt as they walked. “Well that’s just rude.”

 

***

 

It was a beautiful day; clear, sunny skies, mild weather. Harry, Zayn, and Niall met Louis and Liam in the midst of it all, their small group parting the crowd of people moving this direction and that.

“This is pretty impressive,” Liam said, a delighted smile on his face as he watched everyone pass through; families mostly, with young children skirting around their parents’ legs and hollering about the acts they were most excited to see. 

“Hey, it’s the Bearded Lady’s tent!” Harry beamed, grabbing Zayn’s shirt in one fist and Niall’s in the other. “Let’s go!”

 

In all honesty, the whole thing was a bit of a rip off. Instead of charging admission one time into a Big Top tent like other circuses, admission for _The Pinnacle_ was charged each time to enter into several smaller tents, where one act would perform for maybe three minutes at a time. Zayn saw dozens of families forced to drag their kids home early after seeing only three or four acts, just because the price got so steep. Zayn might have left too if it weren’t for Harry, who seemed to be having the time of his life. 

“Can you guys believe that!” Harry crowed when the five of them left Baby Face McGee’s tent. They’d just spent five minutes watching a puffy-cheeked man with two teeth and no hair ride a unicycle up a narrow ramp and down the other side again, balancing a porcelain teapot on top of his head the whole time. 

“I wonder if the teapot had actual tea in it,” Niall joked.

“That would come in handy, wouldn’t it?” Louis chuckled. “Oh, I reckon I’d fancy a cup of tea right now—ah! It’s on top ‘my head.”

They moved on to the biggest tent standing; the menagerie. Where grizzly bears, tigers, and colorful talking birds stared back at them through the bars of their cages. _Don’t get too close!_ signs on some of the cages warned. _I bite!_

“Terrible how they’ve got them locked away like this, isn’t it?” Harry muttered, edging closer to a cage containing a fully grown Bengal tiger. Her name was Louise. “I think she’s sick.”

The tiger looked up at him with hollow eyes, seeing him without really seeing anything at all. She was curled up in the corner of the cage, nestled on a barely-there bed of hay, licking at a wound on one of her paws. 

“Get up, you lazy beast!” A man in work clothes and dirty boots walked over to the cage and shook it, hard, rattling the tiger to a standing position with a growl of protest. “Go on then!” 

“Harry, come on let’s go.” Zayn urged. He could see the way Harry was staring at the man in the dirty boots; emotions whirring behind his eyes, fast as hurricane winds. Zayn grabbed hold of his arm and pulled. “Harry.” He insisted again, until finally he stumbled back, away from the cage and the tiger and the man, and they walked to the other side of the tent where Niall was muttering something to a group of wild monkeys, swinging around on the metal bars of their confinement, jabbering away. 

“Hey there little guys,” Niall was cooing.

“Where did Louis and Liam go?” Zayn asked him, glancing around the tent. He didn’t see them anywhere.

“They took off a while ago. Said something ‘bout going for a smoke,” Niall replied.

Zayn could use a smoke. Or five.

“Let’s get out of here,” Harry murmured. He glanced over his shoulder once more at the tiger, pacing around her tiny confinement, tail switching left and right, and he pushed through the tent flap, out into the crowds again. 

 

***

 

Zayn’s favorite act was the Flamethrower. A tall man, weighted down with muscle and leather, sweat dripping from his forehead as he tossed his head back and blew fire into the sky. The act took place outside, just as the sky began to grow pink and purple with the coming sunset. The man tossed and twirled his fire to the delight of the crowd, leaving behind traces of black smoke and sparks over their heads. Harry was mesmerized by it; eyes wide and lips hung open, mouthing his awe as his hands clapped on their own accord. Zayn watched as one moment Harry was in the audience, whistling through his fingers at a particularly dangerous trick, and the next, he was pushing through the crowd, making his way towards the flamethrower himself.

“What the fuck is he doing?” Zayn said, already making to follow after him. But Niall grabbed his arm, mouthed for him to wait. 

“Can you teach me?” They heard Harry ask the man.

And not a minute later he was tying his curls up on the back of his head, taking one of the Flamethrower’s torches to hold. The crowd gasped, taking a couple steps back as Harry slowly mimicked the man’s bent knees and wolf-like curl of his neck towards the sky. He held the torch up, took a deep breath, and blew out hard, causing the fire to flare and crackle. It was a minor effect, not nearly as powerful as the Flamethrower’s, but the crowd erupted in applause, and the meaty man in leather grinned and clapped Harry on the back. Zayn was at a loss for words. 

“Sometimes you just gotta let him go for things on his own,” Niall chuckled, leaning into Zayn as they both clapped. “He’ll lead you straight over the edge of a cliff if you follow him blind.”

 

***

 

A half hour later, some of the tents were already starting to be taken down and loaded back onto the train, and the crowds were filtering out to head home.

“I think this was one of the best days of my life,” Niall laughed, his arm locked around Harry’s as they pretended to drunkenly stumble along in a zig zag. 

“Mine too,” Harry agreed, his voice hitching up at the end as the two of them nearly fell face first onto the ground. “Zayn? What about you?”

Zayn had been quiet for a while, sleepiness and happy contentment settling into his bones as the night air soothed his lungs. He didn’t say anything back; instead he just gave a dopey smile and jumped to click his heels together once, like a leprechaun. 

Niall and Harry burst into laughter, and Harry looped his free arm through Zayn’s, tugging him in close.

“There they are!” Liam called from somewhere a few feet behind them. Zayn barely had a chance to turn his head around before he was being wrapped up in a big Lima bear hug from behind.

“We’ve been looking around for you three morons for hours!” Louis complained, swinging his arm around Niall’s shoulder.

“Harry spit fire!” Niall blurted, giggling with delight. 

“I didn’t spit fire, I—” Harry started to correct him, then thought better of it. “Yeah, I spit fire.”

“You spit what?!” Louis demanded.

“Popcorn!” Niall tugged away from the group to run after the guy selling the last bags of popcorn. 

“Niall it probably isn’t even hot anymore!” Harry shouted after him. 

“Wait for me!” Louis ran after Niall, and Zayn got jostled into Harry’s chest when Liam ditched him to follow. 

When the Popcorn guy looked over his shoulder to see three grown men running towards him at full speed, he yelped and raced into the fortune teller's tent. 

“Those idiots,” Zayn grumbled, letting go of Harry to fix his shirt. 

Harry frowned and rubbed at his chest. “Idiots,” He agreed.

They continued walking for a little while, looking on as carnie folk retired to their dressing rooms and the animals were shepherded two by two onto the train. Later that night, when all the crowds were gone and the cargo was loaded, they’d all travel—animals and misfits and working men alike—on to the next town to do it all over again. 

“I wish I could go with them,” Harry said quietly, a small smile on his face. “Is that crazy?”

Zayn shook his head, fought to keep the smirk off his face. “You want to run away with the circus?”

Harry shoved his shoulder lightly, frowned in mock offense. “Yeah, maybe I do. I’ve got a budding Flamethrower career, now… Would you come with me?”

Zayn grinned. In his mind he envisioned watching Harry night after night, bending his body back at an angle, chest to the sky, blowing his fire for crowds of people and having the time of his life. “Yeah, I’d go with you. But I don’t have any special skills. What would I do?”

“I could always use an assistant.” Harry wiggled his eyebrows and laughed. 

Zayn huffed. “Fair enough.”

They walked in silence for a few feet before Harry started up again. 

“The next town couldn’t be that far, do you think?” He muttered. His gaze was locked on the circus train with _The Pinnacle_ written on the side in colorful letters. “We could go with them, just for one day. Hop the train, hitch a ride back.”

Zayn laughed, but there was a nervous edge to it. “Wait, are you serious?”

Harry shrugged. “It could be fun.”

“You honest-to-god want to run away with the circus?”

“For one day.” Harry grinned, and his cheek dimpled with it. “No backing out now, Z, you already agreed to come with me.”

“You’re crazy, you know that, Curly?”

“Niall won’t let me forget.”

So they discussed it. Actually fucking discussed running away with the circus. But Zayn managed to talk him down to a bit of hunting instead.

“My Granddad used to carry around a rabbit foot in his pocket for good luck at all times,” Harry laughed. “He’d skin the rabbit, clean it, cook it…and keep the foot in his pocket. It smelled like hell.”

Zayn wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, I bet.”

“I can cook a mean rabbit, though.” Harry added. “Put it over a spit and smoke it ‘till it’s falling off the bone.”

Zayn’s stomach grumbled at the mention. “Shit I’m hungry,” He muttered, and they both laughed. But a second later Zayn saw Isabelle approaching them from a few yards away, accompanied by two of her friends. “Shit,” He said again, for an entirely different reason. 

“Fancy seeing you here,” Isabelle said once they were within earshot. Her cheeks were a deep pink, and a bit of sweat shimmered above her brow from the heat, but she was still an effortless type of beautiful. Luring him in like a game of cat and mouse. 

“Hey Iz,” Zayn breathed the words, a smile already on his lips. He felt Harry shift beside him, leaning a little heavier on one side. “This is Harry Styles, the new town doctor.” He said, reaching over to squeeze at Harry’s shoulder. Zayn felt the muscle tense, then relax in his grip. 

Isabelle, along with her two friends, fixed their gazes on Harry, lingering on his face and his curls and the sweat-damp patch of golden skin where his shirt buttons were left undone. They smiled. 

“Ladies,” Harry nodded politely, but his eyes flicked to Zayn.

“This was quite the hoot, wasn’t it?” Iz said, her voice coming out through a delighted chuckle. “You remember when we went to the circus as children, Zayn? And we saw that elephant stand on its hind legs with the lady on its back?”

Zayn nodded, the memory swimming into his mind easy; Iz pulling him by the arm, racing through the circus grounds until they popped their heads into a tent where a lady in a sparkling pink leotard was doing tricks, balanced on an elephant’s back. They’d never seen anything like it.

“Betsy, I think her name was,” Iz continued, a faraway look in her eyes. “I can’t recall whether that was the woman’s name or the elephant’s.”

“It’s the elephant’s name. She’s still performing; we saw her today.” Harry said. “Zayn—”

“Zayn, can I speak with you for a moment?” Iz asked, her eyes glowing fiery again. “Privately?”

“Oh—uh—of course.” Zayn stuttered, already looking over at Harry. “Haz, I—”

“Go on, it’s alright.” Harry’s jaw was clenched hard, and the smile on his face didn’t quite reach his eyes, but his voice was slow and sweet around the edges like always. 

So Zayn grinned and edged back towards where Iz was already walking away. “Hunting. Tonight. I’ll meet you at the cabin.” He promised, waving once before turning around to jog after Iz. 

Before he was out of earshot, Zayn heard one of the girls ask, “Could you walk us home, Dr. Styles?”

 

***

 

Zayn pulled out at the last second, coming all over Isabelle’s bare stomach before rolling onto his back beside her in the bed. His mind was in a white haze, and he was struggling to keep his eyes open. It took the last bit of energy he had left to lean over and grab a cigarette from the back of his pants. He struck a match and lit it, the smoke burning his nostrils. 

Zayn was covered in sweat, but he was so cold.

They were in Louis and Liam’s apartment; a sparse one-room setup with two creaky single beds propped up against opposite walls and the not-so-subtle stench of man hitting them from every angle. But it was quiet and discreet, and Louis and Liam wouldn’t be coming back to it anytime soon. He hoped.

The whole thing had started off innocent enough; with chaste kisses and quiet conversation— _Remember when we were eleven and you tried to jump off the roof?_ But nose kisses became neck kisses and then Zayn was licking up the sweat at the base of her throat, slipping his hands up her dress. It wasn’t the first time; their first time had been years ago, in Iz’s childhood bed. Zayn with his pants around his skinny ankles, and his shirt only halfway off because he couldn’t wait another second to feel what it was like to be inside her. They were fifteen and young and crazy about each other.

Zayn took the first drag of the cigarette, felt it wash over him. Iz’s soft breaths were the only sound in the room, and the silence settled over them like a tomb. Zayn read once—and he didn’t know if it was true—but he read that ancient people used to dress their dead kings in extravagant robes and put them in coffins made of gold, but only after taking out their organs. They’d bury them in tombs underground and leave them all their riches for the next life, so they were just skin and bones and hair, surrounded by beautiful things that would never see the light of day again.

_I’d want to keep my heart_ , Zayn could hear Harry’s voice in his head, clear as if he were in the room with him. _What the hell would I do with gold in the afterlife, anyway?_

Zayn laughed out loud to himself, hard enough that he almost dropped the cigarette. 

“What’s so funny?” Iz spoke for the first time in ages, her voice gravelly from lack of use. She sat up, balancing her weight on one elbow as she frowned over at Zayn.

“Nothing,” He shook his head, his smile fading suddenly. “It’s just…I was supposed to go hunting tonight.” 

“Hmm.” She hummed and sunk back into the pillow. She had the blanket up over her chest, tucked under her arms, but Zayn could still see the soft curves of her body outlined in the fabric. “Aren’t you glad you decided to come with me instead?” She teased.

Zayn laughed quietly, his lips lifting just the slightest at the corners, and he gave her a playful poke in the side of her belly. 

He was shivering. 

When the cigarette was finished, Zayn dropped it into an empty beer bottle Louis had lying around. The silence was suffocating; growing heavier the longer they just sat there, staring at the four walls. “Iz—” He said finally, but she interrupted him before he could finish.

“I wanna do this. You and me.” The words came suddenly, and so fast they must have been a continuation of her thoughts.

“You—?” Zayn raised his eyebrows, scratched his head. “I mean, give me like a minute or two, but…”

Iz shook her head. “No, listen… I’m talking about this.” She motioned between them. “ _Us_.” She smiled then, her teeth shining in the sparse moonlight coming through the window. “I don’t want to be with anyone else, Zayn.”

His breath caught in his throat and stayed there, trapped, like a lump. 

“I want to be with you, properly.” She said, eyes locked on Zayn’s. “Get married, have kids with you, all of it.”

“Iz—”

“The sneaking around was fun at first, but I’m tired of that.” She continued, her words coming out in a rush. “We’re not getting any younger, and my father’s constantly pressing me to find a husband. He’s going to marry me away with some rich old bastard soon, I can feel it. And I just—I can’t go my whole life not knowing what would happen with us. It could be like it was before, Zayn, remember?”

“Iz, we were teenagers.”

“ _But don’t you remember?_ ” There was an edge to her voice when she said it, her excitement turning frantic as she tried to convince herself of it. “I loved you, and you loved me. We were best friends—we did everything together.”

Iz reached out to take his forearm, holding him tight, digging her fingernails into his skin like the pain would force him to see what she saw. “I wanna marry you,” She pressed her lips to his, then over his nose and his cheeks. Leaving cold, wet traces across his face. “I want to get out of this town with you and build a house by a lake somewhere—”

“Iz,”

“—I could stay with the kids and work. We could have a farm, and I’d help you with the chores and we could have _animals_ , Zayn. Pigs and chickens and cows—it would just be us and our kids, and our animals. We’d be happy there, _I know it,_.”

“Iz!” Zayn finally shouted it, so loud it scared her silent. “None of that is real.” 

“It could be!” She spat, climbing out of bed and taking the covers with her. “You just don’t want to try!”

Zayn dug his fingers into his hair, shut his eyes and took a deep breath to keep from yelling more. He felt like he couldn’t catch up to the air leaving his lungs. Like he was in a race against his own body. “ _We have nothing in common_. You don’t even know me anymore.”

Isabelle looked like she’d been slapped. “What the hell’s that s’posed to mean?” 

“Look at you,” Zayn sighed. He watched as her eyes fell to her own skin; pale and silken, weighted down with sapphire earrings and an antique diamond necklace so precious she never took it off. “You like nice things. You like all that fancy shit; the three course dinners and imported gowns and guys with fat pockets who can afford to give you anything you want.”

She blinked. Her eyes were wet and pained, unable to return his gaze. “You really think I’m that shallow?”

“You’re not shallow. There’s nothing wrong with liking nice things.”

“But it’s wrong for you.”

Zayn shook his head. “I can’t give you those things. You know it, and so does your father.”

“Don’t say that,” She whispered. “You’re like a son to him. If you asked for my hand—”

“But I’m not his son, am I?” Zayn got up then. He started pulling on his pants and his boots, buttoning up his shirt. 

“So this is it then?”

Zayn didn’t want it to be. He wanted the house by the lake and the kids and the animals and everything Iz could see so clearly for them in her head. He wanted it so bad he could scream. But he just couldn’t bring himself to believe it.

“Yeah, that’s it.” He said. “Come on, I’ll walk you home.”

 

***

 

When Zayn walked up to Sawyer’s cabin about an hour later, Niall and Xander were playing checkers on the front porch.

“Wait, just one more game!” Niall whined. “I almost had you that time!”

Xander gave a silent laugh, but started resetting the game piece by piece. They both looked up when they saw Zayn. 

“Hey” He mumbled, smiling weakly.

“Hey…” Niall didn’t smile back. 

“Where’s Harry?”

Niall hesitated, but then pointed off to the west where the trees grew into a thicket. “He’s out hunting.” 

“At this time of night?” Zayn frowned and looked out to the patch of forest. He willed his legs to move in that direction, but they wouldn’t budge.

“Zayn?” Niall walked down the porch steps to stand beside him. His eyes were wary, darkened under the furrow of his brows. “Harry likes you a lot. And he might seem invincible sometimes… but he’s got a big heart.”

Zayn gazed over at the woods again, felt it in his chest when a shot went off and three birds flew up over the trees. There was a chill in his bones that he couldn’t shake, and his body felt so numb he could barely feel his fingertips. “I know,” He said softly. 

He started to walk. 

 

***

 

“Harry?” He called. It was was dark, but the sky was clear, and the moonlight overhead cast everything in a blue silver glow. “Harry!”

Another gunshot went off. This time, so close it was like Zayn fired it himself. 

It didn’t take long to find Harry’s silhouette hunched behind a fallen tree trunk a few feet away, his body coiled in on itself as he aimed at something Zayn couldn’t see. 

“Harry?”

Pow!

“Jesus fucking—” Harry almost shouted. He’d pulled the trigger at the sound of Zayn’s voice, the bullet flying somewhere up and to the left. 

“Shit, I’m sorry—” He started to say.

“ _What are you doing here?_ ”

“…Can we talk?” 

Harry snorted, started walking away. Zayn followed. 

“I’m sorry for leaving the way I did.” Harry’s long legs and irritation made it impossible for Zayn to keep up with him without breaking into a bit of a jog. His words came out bouncy and breathless as he spoke. “I promised we’d go hunting, and I know you were looking forward to it—”

Harry stopped walking then, and Zayn very nearly ran into his back. He whirled around and glared at him with glassy eyes, like he was going to yell, or throw a punch, or both. Instead, Harry’s voice was low and gravelly, wavering around the edges like the acrobats they’d seen walking the tightrope. “It’s not about the hunting, Zayn. We were having a great time—the best time—together. But when that girl came around, it was like suddenly, I barely existed to you anymore.”

Zayn didn’t know what to say. “Haz, I…”

“It’s fine. Forget it.” Harry turned to walk—back towards the house where Niall and Xander were still on the front porch, playing a game—away from Zayn.

“Please,” He reached out to grab Harry’s arm before he could think twice about it. He felt raw on the inside; ripped apart, flesh hanging on bones with nothing underneath, like the dead kings in their tombs. “I’m sorry, I really am. And I know I’ve been an ass… But I need you right now, Harry. _Please_.”

Harry blinked once, slowly. His gaze traveled down to where Zayn’s hand was still gripping his arm. Several seconds of silence passed before finally he said, “Okay,”

 

***

 

They were leaning up against the old segment of fence where Zayn taught Harry how to shoot cans. Harry’s arms were crossed over his chest as he listened to what Zayn had to say, but he listened all the same. 

“…so I ended it with her.” He said, scratching at the back of his neck, not meeting Harry’s eyes. “I know it was the right thing to do, but…it’s hard, you know? I don’t know anything else.”

A beat passed, then two, before Harry finally spoke.

“I’m sorry,” He said. His eyes were wide and sincere as he looked at Zayn. No longer angry, just a little tired around the edges. “You two grew up together, I know it’s not easy to let that go.”

Zayn nodded. He thought about the vibrant young girl with the muddy boots and eyes that glittered like stars. He still loved her, wherever she was. But he was tired of holding on so tight.

“Yeah… So, you catch anything out there, Curly?” He asked, a smirk already twitching on his lips. “I heard a lot of shooting going on, but I don’t see you smoking any rabbits.”

“Told you I was a bad shot.”

“Yeah, you did. Maybe no more night hunting then,” Zayn teased. “How about first light tomorrow morning, I show you how it’s done?”

Harry narrowed his eyes and stuck out his hand. Zayn shook it; felt the warmth of Harry’s palm against his cold fingers as they both grinned. “Deal.”


	5. Five

Zayn did’t break any more promises to Harry after that, and things went back to the way they were before—except everything was different.

Louis was working over-time at the bank almost every day, insistent on saving up enough money to buy himself some land, and maybe a house. Liam continued keeping order within the town as always, but with the added task of preparing for the upcoming mayoral elections. He stayed at town hall sometimes until the early hours of the morning, writing up plans and proposals and whatever else it was that mayoral candidates needed to prepare. Niall’d managed to find himself a steady lady friend, and between doctoring half the town for everything from stomach aches to gunshot wounds, he was rather content to take polite evening walks through town with his girl, and then roll around on Doc Jones’ old mattress a few hours later in the apartment above his shop. 

Zayn and Harry were always together.

 

They’d taken on a routine somehow, falling into a pattern accidentally that neither of them really expected, or understood. But it happened so fast and so naturally that they didn’t question it, just went with it.

Most evenings, they stayed up so late that by the time they even crawled into bed, the first bit of light was already creeping into the sky. Zayn would be near incoherent, dozing off at the kitchen table when they tried to play a game of cards, but Harry never seemed to tire; always begging Zayn to stay up just a little bit longer with him. _I don’t sleep so well_ , he explained. So Zayn would just nod and rub the sleep out of his eyes, telling Harry it was his turn to shuffle. Then when he finally pried his eyes open sometime around noon the next day, Harry would already be up and out of the house, carrying out the daily chores or checking in with Xander, who preferred the company of animals to people. The only times Harry ever truly slept, were the nights when the warmth from the stove wasn’t enough, and the chill in the night air was harsh enough to bring them together in one bed, huddled against each other, shivering until the warmth of their bodies and breath created a sort of cocoon under the blankets. Harry always ended up giggling; his nerves jumpy from the cold and the close proximity. Zayn liked the sound of it, and he’d smile at Harry through a sleepy haze, trying to stay awake long enough to hear him finally slip into stillness and quiet snores. But the warmth and proximity got to Zayn, too, and he never even remembered falling asleep, but he did.

 

There were nights when Harry didn’t want to just stay in, so he’d drag Zayn out into the night with him, and Zayn would help him with his form as he practiced shooting cans off the fence again, hands lingering on Harry’s shoulders as he lined his body up just so. And Harry slowly taught Zayn not to be afraid, coaxing him with a low voice and steady words when Zayn reached out a tentative handful of carrots to Ghost. Some nights they just walked aimlessly, talking into the darkness, enjoying the nighttime sounds of the country and the other’s presence, until they barely recognized where they were anymore.

But more often than not, they just ended up loitering by the train station in the dead of night, because Harry loved the way his ribs rattled every time one of them passed by, screaming a whistle, breathing steam into the air, shaking the earth as it thundered by. 

“Step back before you fall,” Zayn laughed. He was leaning against a wooden post, just finishing up his third cigarette as he watched the sky turn from black to grey to the lightest pink he’d ever seen. Harry was hanging off another post, right by the edge of the station platform, peering to the left to see if he could make out an approaching light. He swung his boot out lightly, over the tracks and back again, as he turned to give Zayn a smile that sent his nerves thrumming, burning a fire in his blood that he couldn’t explain. 

Zayn had never been very good at interpreting his own emotions, or even his own fucking thoughts, but he liked the way it felt when Harry smiled at him. It made him feel like he was in that cocoon of covers back in the cabin, a pocket of heat that made his limbs feel lazy and weak.

“Seriously, Haz, come on,” He chuckled, reaching out to wave him over. “I’m tired, let’s go.”

“Stop being a baby and just wait. It’ll be here soon; listen.” The distant sound of a train whistle could be heard about a mile out. Harry smirked and looked out to the horizon. It was almost sunrise, and he couldn’t keep his eyes away. “My mother would have liked it here,” He said suddenly. “You can see so much… miles and miles of land and sky, stretching all the way to the edge of it all.”

Zayn smiled and walked over to stand beside Harry, right on the edge. “You’ve been reading too much poetry, Curly.”

Harry grinned and wrinkled his nose. “Yeah maybe so. But she really would have liked it.”

There was a sadness in the way he said it, trailing out from the words like the fraying ends of a knit scarf. Zayn knew there was more to it that Harry wasn’t saying, and he wanted to hear it all. “What was she like?”

Harry seemed surprised by the question. He frowned, traced his thumb over his bottom lip for several seconds before speaking. “She was a lot of fun. I always remember having fun with her. She was kind and beautiful, and people loved her…” Harry trailed off again, blinked fast a couple times. “Her life was pretty rough at first, but she did her best to turn it around.”

“How old were you, when—?” Zayn didn’t want to say it, but Harry nodded.

“I was six.”

The train whistled again, closer this time. 

“What about your mother? Do you remember her?” Harry tilted his head to the side, swept his hair out of his eyes only for it to fall back in place. 

“My mother?” It was Zayn’s turn to be surprised. “I don’t have a mother.”

“You just flew down from heaven, huh?” Harry smiled again, and Zayn put an arm around his shoulder. 

“Yeah, pretty much.” He replied. He knew Harry was waiting for him to continue, but Zayn changed the subject instead. “The sun’s rising, Haz. Let’s go home.” Back to the cabin with curtains over the windows and a warm bed for them to crawl into, Harry like a furnace under the covers. Zayn felt a tingle run down his spine at the thought. He wondered if Harry did, too. Zayn gave his shoulder a squeeze, then dropped his hand away, back to his side. 

A breeze blew by just then, cool and sweet-smelling, but strong enough to take their breaths away a bit. Strong enough to flip Zayn’s hat off his head and down onto the tracks.

Zayn cursed and peered over the edge as his one and only hat tumbled along the wooden slats. 

“I’ll get it,”

“What—” Zayn couldn’t even finish his sentence before Harry was letting go of the post and jumping off the edge of the platform, landing shortly after with a thud. “Harry, what the hell are you doing?!”

“Getting your hat, what does it look like?” He chased after it, bent over at the waist, knees bent, long limbs shuffling after the dusty old thing. He laughed as he did so, grasping with his fingers, swerving around like it was some kind of ridiculous game.

“Harry!” Zayn called after him, but the train whistle sounded again, and it was so loud that time that Zayn’s voice was completely drowned out by it. Ice cold fear gripped him then, tightening in his chest like a vise. Before he realized what he was doing, Zayn jumped onto the tracks himself and took off at a sprint towards Harry.

“Harry!” When he finally reached him, Zayn grabbed his shoulder and whirled him around. “Leave it! Get off the fucking tracks, man! Let’s go!”

“Relax, I was just—” Harry started to say, but stopped abruptly when he tried to walk and got yanked back by his foot. His foot that was stuck between two wooden planks on the tracks. Zayn felt his heart stop, then start thudding again so hard it made him dizzy with it. 

“Harry,” He breathed, hearing the panic in his own voice. “Try—try pulling it again.” He glanced over his own shoulder, expecting to see the train just on their tail, waiting to flatten them into the ground. But all he could see was the light flickering in the distance, slightly weakened by the first rays of sunshine. The train whistled a third time. “Fuck, fuck, fuck—” Zayn choked. “Pull harder!”

Harry pulled, and Zayn pulled, but his foot wouldn’t budge. Harry’s eyes were so wide they looked like they might fall out of his head. Sturdy tugs on his leg became more desperate, yanking until the pain was visible on his face. Zayn’s brain was white static, completely useless in the haze of panic he was in. He made himself take a deep breath.

“Harry wait, stop for a second,” Zayn put a hand on Harry’s leg, stilling him. They could literally hear the _chug-chug-chug_ of the train behind their backs, but Zayn sunk down to one knee and fumbled with the laces of Harry’s boot, begging his hands to stop shaking long enough to work. “Okay, now pull,” He breathed.

So Zayn gripped Harry’s calf, and Harry tensed the muscle hard, both of them using everything they had to pull one last time. Harry cried out in pain, but they didn’t stop. And then, all at once, they were flying backwards. They landed in the dirt beside the train tracks, sprawled out in the dust. Harry was lying beside him, his long legs tangled with Zayn’s, and Zayn had the wind knocked out of him from the force. The train went by them shortly afterwards, loud and brutal, rumbling along the tracks so quickly it hurt Zayn’s eyes to look at it. 

Harry hissed and grabbed at his socked foot then; when he pulled the fabric away it was red and swollen, scratched up in certain places, but still intact. He massaged roughly up and down the sole of his foot and looked up at Zayn, tears already welling up in his eyes, beginning to spill over. “I’m so sorry,” He breathed, shaking his head, gasping sobs suddenly racking through his body. “I’m so sorry,”

Zayn felt the panic return in his chest, pulse racing, heart skittering as he watched Harry break down before him. “Hey,” He almost whispered it, pulling himself upright and reaching over to place a hand between Harry’s shoulder blades. He felt warm, even through the fabric of his shirt, and Zayn’s fingers hummed with it. “It’s alright, Haz.” He said softly, smoothing his hand up and down like Mrs. James used to do sometimes when he was a child. 

Zayn kept doing it until Harry’s frantic gasps petered out, and he glanced up at him with wet, green eyes, so big they took over his entire face. Zayn couldn’t stop staring at them; the way the sun made them glow like precious jewels. “It’s alright,” Zayn repeated, his hand stalling on Harry’s back and moving to his face instead. He let his thumb sweep over the flushed skin of Harry’s cheeks, wiping away his tears until Harry closed his eyes and breathed. “You and me, we’re alright.” 

 

Zayn helped him to a standing position, letting Harry lean against him while he steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. It wasn’t necessary, and they both knew that. Harry’s foot would be sore for a while, but he’d be able to walk just fine. Still, Zayn couldn’t bring himself to let go, and neither could Harry. So they both pretended for their own sakes, and lumbered in the direction of the cabin, Harry gripping tightly at Zayn’s shirt. His head leaning onto Zayn’s shoulder from time to time; passing along the silent _thank you_ ’s he was too nervous to speak. Because Zayn should be pissed. He should yell, pick a fight, tell Harry he’s off-his-ass crazy for almost getting them killed yet again… 

And maybe it was because he was still so shaken up, but Zayn just couldn’t find the words or the energy to be angry…because it occurred to him, as they were walking back home, that he’d never even thought twice about jumping down onto those tracks after Harry. Not once did it dawn on him that he too could die there along with him, trying to pull him free… And he would have. If they ran out of time, and it came down to it, Zayn would have stayed there and died with him, without a doubt, without a second guess.

He didn’t know if that was courage—the one thing all the heroes had in common in the stories Harry read night after night—or if he was just a downright fool. But whatever it was, whatever drove him to that level of selflessness for another person, it was fucking terrifying. 

 

***

 

Niall was waiting for them out front when they got back to the cabin. Kicking up dust with his boots, pacing back and forth, hat pulled down low over his eyes. They could tell the moment they saw him that he was mad as hell. 

“Hey Ni,” Zayn said cautiously, letting his hand fall from Harry’s shoulder so he could approach his friend. But when Niall looked up, he barely even registered Zayn, just stormed over to Harry and prodded a finger into the center of his chest. 

“ _Where the hell have you been?_ ” He gritted. “You’ve barely shown your face in town in over a week. I needed you, Haz!”

Harry pushed Niall’s finger away, brows furrowed deeply, cheeks reddening. “I’ve been here the whole time, you know that. If you needed me, why didn’t you come get me?”

“I shouldn’t have to come get you!” Niall threw his arms up in frustration, looking on the verge of tears. “You’re s’posed to be my fucking partner! If I have to open up the shop every morning at the crack of dawn, then you should be right there by my side, doing it with me! I can’t do this by myself, Harry!”

“Fellas,” Zayn tried, holding up his hand. It didn’t do any good, not that he really expected it to. He grasped in his pocket for the smoke that he desperately needed, but he’d finished his last one that morning. 

“What the fuck’s your problem, why are you yelling like this?” Harry demanded, his voice still edged with anger, but quieting down some as he became aware of how badly Niall was shaking and the wetness glittering in his eyes.

“Granddad’s dead,” He all but whispered, a hand coming to his mouth. “Granddad’s dead, and I need you, okay?”

Harry’s eyes went wide, the pink curves of his lips parting slightly with shock. But he blinked a couple times, sucked in a breath, and seemed to come to his senses, ushering Niall inside with a hand on his shoulder.

Zayn lingered on the porch steps, unsure of whether to go inside and comfort his friends, or stand back and give them privacy. But before he had to think too long on it, Liam rode up to the cabin on horseback, his hat shielding his face from the rising mid-morning sun. The horse halted just a few feet away from Zayn, it’s nostrils flaring, hooves kicking lightly. Zayn felt his pulse quicken, and he stepped back, quickly enough that Liam wouldn’t notice as he dismounted his horse in one graceful sweep. 

“It’s hot as devil’s breath out here,” Liam grimaced, wiping the sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief as he walked over to the porch. He looked up at Zayn with an unreadable expression on his face, pausing just a moment longer than normal before he said, “Hey there, Z.”

Zayn lifted his lips up in a small smile, nodded his head in a greeting. It had been such an odd morning, he didn’t really know how to carry himself. He could hear Niall and Harry arguing again inside the house, most of it too muffled to make out, but some of it getting through.

“Niall…calm…just breathe…” Harry was saying.

“No…fuck—…time to go…” Niall replied, his voice wet, uncontrolled.

Zayn wondered again if he should do something.

“What’s going on in there?” Liam asked, frowning. 

“Their grandfather just died,” Zayn explained, motioning back towards the door. He bit his lip, fingers twitching against his thigh, yearning for that smoke still. He could still hear the train whistle in the back of his mind, could still feel how fast his heart had raced in his chest when he saw the look in Harry’s eyes that said maybe they were out of time. “Liam, hey… I’m sorry. For not being around much lately. I know you’ve got a lot to do, with the campaign and all, and me disappearing isn’t helping.”

Liam smiled at him, his face lighting up despite the dark circles under his eyes and the pallor of his cheeks. “It’s fine, Z. It’s good for you to take some time off for once… Sorry to tell you this, but the town won’t fall to ruins if you break from being the sheriff for a few days.” He laughed, patted Zayn’s shoulder.

Zayn chuckled. “Alright, I hear you.” He scratched at his head, frowned. “I should help you out with that, too. The campaign. I don’t really know what the hell that entails, but I’m here for whatever you need.” 

A shadow crossed over Liam’s face, but it disappeared just as quickly as it came about. “Nothing’s really happening right now. Jack said he would help me; back me up, sell me as his replacement, get all of the posters and events together. But he hasn’t mentioned it in months, and he’s not making any preparations to step down.” He pressed his lips into a hard line, dug his hands deep into his pockets.

“You think he might be trying to run again?”

Liam shook his head quickly. “No, no definitely not. He’s said himself he’s ready to retire. And he’s been prepping me to take over for years now.”

Zayn nodded. “Just don’t turn into a jackass when you get into office. Cause I’m not calling you ‘sir’, no matter how important you are.” He grinned, and Liam rolled his eyes, back to himself again.

“Listen, the reason I came up here was because Jack’s called a meeting at noon with all of the town officials, and he wants us there.”

Zayn groaned, rubbed at his eyes. He was so exhausted he could drop, and all he wanted to do was crawl into bed. “What’s it about?”

Liam shrugged one shoulder. “He didn’t say. But I wouldn’t miss it if I were you.” He walked back to his horse and lifted himself onto the saddle again, already grabbing the reigns. “See you in a couple hours.”

 

Zayn sighed, and turned to go back into the cabin, but before he could even reach for the door, Harry was coming out. They almost collided, but stopped just inches from each other, their noses nearly touching from the proximity. “Uh, sorry,” Zayn was the first to move, shuffling back a few steps and trying to ignore the heat rushing to his cheeks. 

Harry smiled, ran a hand through his hair. His eyes were a little sad, and his smile didn’t lift the corners of his lips all the way, but he seemed generally alright. “Niall’s okay now. Sleeping.” Harry informed. “He got the news yesterday in a telegram, and he didn’t sleep last night, so… he kind of just passed out on the bed after we talked.”

Something in Harry’s voice pulled at Zayn’s chest, like a loose string he couldn’t stop worrying. He rubbed the space, like that might help, but it didn’t. He missed having Harry lean on him, pretending he couldn’t walk on his own. He missed their cocoon and the long nights they spent together with no one else around. Harry’s voice and the look on his face gave Zayn the feeling that maybe all of that would be coming to an end soon.

“Are you okay?” He asked simply. “I’m sorry…about your granddad.”

Harry blinked quickly, just before a tear could slip down his cheek. He smiled a little breathlessly, shrugged his shoulders lightly. “He was 87 years old. Heart of an ox, mind sharp as a tack. He had a good life, I know. I’m okay. I miss him, but I’m okay… Niall just…he…” Harry trailed off, but he didn’t try to find the words. “You wanna go sleep?” He yawned, a soft, high sound coming from his mouth, arms stretching over his head. 

“Yeah,” Zayn felt himself yawning too, his eyes watering with how tired he was. And all he could think about was a deep sleep that would sink right into his bones. 

He followed Harry inside the cabin, and to the right, towards the little room with the three beds. Niall was lying in the one they usually slept in, his slim frame stretched out over the blanket, a bit of drool seeping out of his mouth. Zayn and Harry looked at each other, then silently, Zayn crawled up to the available top bunk, and Harry laid down on the bottom. Zayn’s sleep was restless, and when he woke up, he felt more tired than when he first laid down. 

It was barely half past eleven when Zayn climbed down from the bunk and started pulling his boots back on. He was still exhausted, but sleep didn’t seem to be doing him any good, so he figured he might as well head to town hall. Niall didn’t stir, even with all the shuffling around Zayn was doing, but when Zayn looked over at Harry, Harry was staring right back at him.

“Where are you going?” He asked, his voice low and a little scratchy. He sat upright, his hair slightly matted on one side. 

“Town Hall. Jack called a meeting.” Zayn explained, straightening out himself so he was looking at Harry directly. “I thought you were sleeping?”

Harry shook his head. “Couldn’t sleep,”

Zayn felt a smile twitch at the edges of his lips. “Yeah, me either.”

“I’m coming with you.” Harry got out of the bed and shoved his feet in his own boots. 

“You don’t have to, Haz. It’ll probably be boring.”

“A town hall meeting? Boring?” Harry pretended to be incredulous. “Not a chance in hell!”

Zayn smirked despite himself and shrugged. “Alright, come on then.”

 

Town Hall was nothing more than an old farm-house acting as a government building. It wasn’t cozy or inviting or anything—it was never painted, and there weren’t any personal touches added anywhere, but the inside was cramped and too closed off to serve the purposes it needed to serve. After the last fire, the townspeople chose it to be a temporary stand-in location, but somehow they never got around to actually building another one. Harry and Zayn walked up to it with ten minutes to spare before the meeting began, and stood outside by the door instead of subjecting themselves to the tiny humid rooms any longer than they absolutely had to. 

“Hey Sheriff,” A man greeted Zayn on his way out the door, tipping his hat. Zayn nodded, greeting him back.

“People need us to stay around,” Harry said suddenly, bumping Zayn’s shoulder lightly with his own. “We help people, that’s our job. And we can’t just disappear when we feel like it.”

“Niall got to you pretty good, huh?”

Harry nodded, looked down. “Yeah, I feel guilty for leaving him like that.”

Zayn sighed. “I left Liam, too. We oughta do better.” 

Harry hummed in agreement, his face dropping just a bit. “You’re right, yeah, we do.”

Zayn felt his heart beat a little faster in his chest as he looked at Harry. “But,” He said, bumping Harry’s shoulder again, a smirk on his lips. “I’m still gonna have you shootin’ cans ‘till you fix your miserable aim, don’t think you’re off the hook.”

Harry’s grin stretched across his face, cheeks dimpling. “Yeah, and I’ll have you riding a horse like a regular cowboy by the time summer rolls around, you mark my words.”

Zayn made a face at that, and Harry laughed.

“Oh, look who’s on time.” Louis strolled up to them, hands in pockets, a grin on his face. 

“You’re late more often than I am,” Zayn protested half-heartedly, smiling anyway. “What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you around much.”

Louis shrugged, kicked the dust with the toe of his boot. “Jack insists on having me attend these stupid meetings, like it’ll make me change my mind about working for him.” He rolled his eyes, sighed. “And I, uh, started seeing a girl—Marianne Howe,” Louis smiled, blushing bright pink. 

“Congratulations,” Harry beamed and patted Louis on the back. Zayn did the same.

“I think she might be the one,” Louis nodded quickly, blushing even more.

“Well, well,” Zayn smirked. “Never thought I’d see Louis Tomlinson in love. That’s real sweet, man.”

“Oh, shut up,” Louis rolled his eyes again and held back a smile. “Hey, uh—is Liam in there?”

Zayn looked at his pocket watch, saw the slim black hands nearly aligned at the twelve. “Yeah, he probably got here like thirty minutes ago, knowing him. Let’s go inside.”

 

The old house seemed even more cramped with ten men all packed around one room, sweating into their shirt collars, brows furrowed in the permanent scowls that came with the dry, Southwestern heat. Zayn stood next to Liam with Harry pressed in on his other side, already fumbling to tie up his curls before they started to really stick to his neck. Louis sidled in after Harry, and the rest of the men, including Mayor Jack James himself, sat around a short, oval table, water glasses stationed in front of them, already condensing in big droplets to roll down onto the weathered wood. 

“Gentlemen,” Jack began. “Thank you for joining me this fine afternoon. I have some business to discuss.”

Zayn heard Harry take in a sharp breath beside him. “Are you okay?” He whispered. “Is it your foot?”

Harry shook his head, almost imperceptibly, but didn’t look at him. His cheeks had lost their coloring, and his forehead was shining with fresh sweat. “No, it’s just hot in here ’s all.”

“I called the meeting here instead of our usual locations,” Jack’s voice boomed throughout the tiny room. “because I felt it necessary to drive home the importance of what I’m about to propose.”

The room was silent—just a bunch of hot, irritable men waiting for him to get the damned meeting over with. 

“I’d like to renovate our town.” Jack finally said, spreading his arms for dramatic affect, fixing the room with his trademark grin. “With the changing times, it’s gonna start expanding, whether we like it or not, and in order to accommodate, we’re going to have to make our buildings bigger, more efficient.”

Murmurs erupted throughout the older men in the room, most of them shaking their heads. “The buildings we have work just fine!” One man huffed. “Ain’t a point in changing them now. If there’s no room for more people here, then there ain’t room for ‘em. They can go back to wherever it is they came from.”

Murmurs of approval. Jack’s grin faltered just the slightest. 

“Gentlemen, just about all of you here have invested into this town in one way or another, and I thank you for that, as do the rest of the citizens, for using your means to make this a better place to live.” Jack paused, looking them over. “And that’s what we want, right? To make this town better? We rebuild the schoolhouse not just so that new children are able to attend, but also so that our children can learn in a building with a roof that doesn’t leak when it rains, and that has windows that can open when it gets too hot to bear. We build a bank you feel comfortable leaving all your worldly worth in because it’s secure and the vaults are made of steel. We build a new town hall, with new offices and space to breathe and places for us to gather on a regular basis and comfortably discuss the current going-ons of our town.

“This town has been through quite a lot, I realize. Fire after fire, burning down everything you love, leaving nothing behind. It’s frightening to build anything lasting because, what if it happens again? What if we lose everything?”

The men remained silent, their expressions softening just the slightest, turning introspective.

Jack continued, drawing them in like fish on a line. “But we can’t keep holding onto the past, gentlemen. We can’t keep standing still out of fear. We have to move onward. So,” Jack leaned forward, folding his hands together on the table in front of him. “Will you help me make our town a better place?”

 

The opinions were split, fifty/fifty. Three of the men agreed to invest, while the other three either said they’d sleep on the decision, or—in the case of one Mr. Henry Duffer—gave him an outright ‘hell no’. 

Zayn and Harry left just before the “debates” broke out; old men beet red in the face, cursing and shouting that their opinion is the way to go. Without warning, Harry’d rushed out the door, so fast that Zayn had a hard time chasing after him. He only caught up when Harry stopped to throw up by the side of the building. 

“Harry?” Zayn placed a hand on his back, feeling that sense of dread well up inside him again. “Are you okay?”

Harry coughed, hard, his body shaking. When he stood up again, he wiped his face with his sleeve and took a deep breath. He still looked pale, and there was still sweat pouring down his temples, but his eyes were bright, and when he nodded and said he was fine, it was convincing enough. “Just the heat,” He insisted again.

They waited for Liam and Louis to come out before they began walking. Zayn couldn’t help but notice how they barely acknowledged one another, their shoulders rigid as they stepped out into the sunshine. 

“You alright, Hazza? Saw you running out of the room.” Liam frowned, looking genuinely concerned. “I’m sorry about your grandfather dying… Zayn told me.”

Harry nodded, gave a small smile. “Thanks, I’m alright.”

“Shit, Harry. I’m sorry too. I didn’t know.” Louis said softly, squeezing Harry on the shoulder.

“I think I’m just gonna go back to the cabin. Niall’s there, and…”

“Aw, I can’t stand to see blondie upset.” Louis muttered. “I’ll stop by, if that’s alright. Try to cheer him up some.”

Harry smiled, his cheeks pinking up a bit. “Yeah, he’d like that.”

“I’ll come too,” Liam added, his tone strong and self-assured. He ignored it when Louis turned to glare at him. 

“Well alright then,” Zayn said, narrowing his eyes at the two of them as he spoke. “Let’s head out. Feels like a storm might be comin’.”

 

***

 

The cloud cover was heavy by the time they all reached Sawyer’s cabin, crowding out all the sunlight so it looked more like dusk than the middle of the afternoon. Niall was awake when they arrived, already sitting out on the front porch, his bare, dirty toes wiggling where his feet were propped up on the railing. He saluted them with his hat as he saw them approaching, Louis and Liam on the backs of their horses, and Harry and Zayn trailing a little ways behind. They were all drenched in sweat from the heat, and Zayn’s eyelids felt like they were weighed down with stones.

“Sheriff still won’t ride a horse, eh?” Niall smirked. He and Zayn still weren’t on great terms, so Zayn just pretended to ignore the thinly-veiled sting. Fighting with Niall wouldn’t help anybody. Plus, on some level he knew he kind of deserved the badgering.

“Leave him alone, Ni,” Harry mumbled, finally stepping up onto the porch and knocking the blonde’s dirty feet off the railing. “Hey—could you help me with something around back for a second?” He asked quietly, although still loud enough that Zayn could hear it. 

Reluctantly, Niall stood from his spot and followed Harry around the house. Louis offered to tend to the horses, taking the reigns of his and Liam’s in one hand and leading them towards the old stable. Liam watched after him for a moment or so before reaching into his pocket for a cigarette, moseying up to a spot on the porch to light it and blow smoke out towards the storm clouds. He hardly seemed to notice as Zayn slipped past him, inside the cabin. Headed for the soft, warm bed he’d been dreaming off since before the first light that morning. The moment his head hit the pillow, he was dead weight.

 

The sky was all the way black when Zayn finally woke up again. His body felt heavy, sluggish, the bed pulling him back into its clutches like quicksand every time he tried to sit up. Outside, rain pelted against the windows with short, powerful thrums. and every so often, he’d see the land light up in bright white, frozen momentarily, before the darkness returned, followed by whip-cracks of thunder that made a chill run down Zayn’s spine.

He could hear laughter from the front room, big and bellowing—Niall’s, most certainly. And he could hear Liam and Louis and Harry’s voices, too, adding into the conversation, laughing, sharing stories. After a while, Zayn finally managed to pull himself out of bed, tugging on his boots before leaving the dark room. He squinted into the lamp-lit scene before him, scratching at the back of his head, before he mumbled a barely-recognizable greeting and yawned. 

“Good evening, Sleeping Beauty,” Louis chuckled. Zayn pretended to tip his hat in reply. 

The five of them—Xander had come in to join them as well, staring at Zayn with cold eyes from across the room—were sitting around the table, drinking and playing a card game. All of them looked to be in relatively good spirits, especially Harry, who’d beamed at him from the moment he walked through the door. 

Zayn walked over to the sleeping, wood-burning stove and reached over top of it, to the shelf of cans where he and Harry had stocked up a few days earlier. Grabbed himself a can of pinto beans on which he promptly used his pocket can opener to pry the lid off. He listened to the boys’ conversation continue as he did. 

“When I looked outside, the water was so high up on the ground it could wet the ankles of your socks.” Liam said, with more shock than worry. “The ground’s too dry to absorb all of it, and it just keeps raining. Gonna make this whole town float away if it doesn’t stop soon.”

“We’ll just trade our horses in for boats, Li, problem solved.” Niall grinned. 

Liam laughed, clutched his hat to his chest. 

“I hope you all know you’re not going back out there tonight,” Harry added, his brows furrowing seriously for a moment. “We can make room here—I’m sure under the circumstances, Sawyer wouldn’t mind us taking advantage of her extra bed back there.”

Louis shakes his head. “Couldn’t put you out like that, Haz. Plus I’ve got to open the bank tomorrow, first thing.”

Zayn frowns. “Louis Tomlinson, waking earlier than noon?” He puts his hand to his throat in mock-surprise. “I never thought I’d see the day!”

“Yeah alright, ha-ha-ha,” Louis rolled his eyes. “Truth is, Marianne said she’d come by. Said she’d bring me something.”

“Sex,” Niall smirked.

Louis turned bright red. “No, no, like—fuck, I don’t know, muffins or something.”

“She’ll give you a muffin alright,” Niall snickered, and Harry whopped him on the back of the head immediately after. “Ow!”

“You’re still not leaving.” Harry insisted.

“No, I think we should let him swim home in time to meet his lady friend for morning muffins.” Liam said suddenly, something cutting at the edges of his words as he looked at Louis. “Sounds like a brilliant plan to me.”

“No one’s leaving.” Harry said again.

“I’ve made up my mind, Harold, I’m sorry.” Louis shrugged, standing and placing his hat back on his head. He pretended not to flinch when a particularly loud thunder crack whipped through the sky. 

Zayn swallowed a mouthful of cold beans and sighed. “Louis, you’re not going anywhere, sit down.”

“Yeah? Watch me, Sheriff.” Louis teased, heading for the door.

Zayn set down his can of beans, picked up his pistol from where it’d been nestled in his holster, hanging on a hook by the door. He shot a hole in the floor, right by Louis’ foot, loud enough to make everyone in the cabin jump. Louis hopped up like a dancing cricket, screeching. “You’re staying.” Zayn reiterated. He looked to the other men, who were staring at him wide-eyed, Harry smirking a little bit despite his surprise. “Anyone else wanna try and leave tonight?”

 

***

 

Later, Xander took back his bed, while Liam and Louis took the bunk beds, Liam with Niall squished in with him, snoring in his ear. Harry and Zayn ended up taking Sawyer’s bed in the other room—mainly because the rest of the boys were half-worried she’d manifest out of thin air and demand them to get their grungy hands off her pillows. 

“Smells like her,” Harry scrunched up his nose, sniffing the covers. “I miss her. She’s still out visiting her sister.”

“I miss her, too.” Zayn admitted, settling in on the stiff old mattress and trying to get comfortable. Harry was still sitting up, legs criss-crossed, playing with a loose thread on the blanket. The only light in the room was the faint blue glow of moonlight coming through the dirty window. “Everything alright, Haz?” Zayn asked, watching the way Harry’s brows furrowed a little deeper in thought. He tried not to be bothered by how far away Harry was sitting—not curled up beside him like usual, his skin giving off heat that would make them both sweat in the already-humid room. 

Harry turned to him, his expression softening. 

“What’s got you thinking so hard, Styles?” Zayn teased lightly, a fond smile spreading across his face.

“Niall told me he wanted to leave today.” Harry said softly, his gaze falling back to his hands. “Get back home in time to make Granddad’s funeral. Then stay to sort out his estate.”

Zayn’s heart lurched so heavily it almost fall out of his chest. “Oh—well—we’d all understand if the two of you wanted to take some time away to handle that… We could watch over things for you, until you got back.”

But Harry shook his head, still wouldn’t meet Zayn’s eyes. “No, Niall didn’t just wanna go for a short trip. He wanted to go, and never come back.”

“Harry—” Zayn was losing breath, could feel his heartbeat slow, slow, slow, then speed up again. 

“I got him to change his mind, ultimately.” Harry clarified, shooting a small, relieved smile over at Zayn. “He was just upset, with granddad dying, and me bailing on him, and apparently his lady friend dumped him yesterday afternoon…”

“That’s rough,” Zayn managed, his body still reeling.

“Yeah…” Harry sighed. “But I wasn’t going anywhere anyway. My grandfather was respected by everyone in town; his estate will be taken care of, as well as his funeral. I loved the old man, but there’s plenty of important business to tend to around here with this lot of wild cards.”

“Wild Cards?” Zayn asked, a grin splitting across his face.

“You almost shot Louis in the foot today,” Harry laughed.

“I wouldn’t have actually done it,” Zayn shrugged, but smirked.

“You left a hole in the floor,”

“Along with the other two dozen Sawyer put there herself.” Zayn chuckled. 

With that, Harry laughed and finally wiggled down under the covers, his legs long and stretched out, curls surrounding his head in a messy halo on the pillow. Even in the faint light, Zayn could see Harry’s dimple cratering his cheek.

“You’re cute, you know that?” Zayn mumbled, feeling his heart do that swoop-y thing again in his chest. 

For a few beats, Harry didn’t respond, and Zayn thought he’d crossed a line. He panicked, felt his mouth go dry. “Harry I’m—”

“You think so?” Harry asked softly, his voice barely above a whisper. 

Zayn can’t tell if he’s sleepy, or just trying to keep quiet. “Yeah,” He smiled, reaching over to scratch his fingers through the mess of curls on the pillow. Making Harry’s eyes fall shut and a pleased hum leave his lips. “I guess I do,” Zayn chuckled, scratched Harry’s head again, along his scalp, just to hear him make the sound one more time. 

For some time after that, the cabin was dead quiet, except for the rain outside and Harry’s breathing. Zayn wanted to stretch the moment out forever; didn’t want to have to leave the warmth of the bed and Harry’s skin brushing up against his in small patches. So they stayed like that for a while; silent, regulating their breathing so it synced up, made time slow down just a little bit. 

When they finally fell asleep, it was with Harry’s head nudged up to Zayn’s chest, and Zayn’s fingers still buried in his hair. 

 

***

 

Zayn woke up in a panic. 

In his dreams, he’d watched Harry get washed away by a river, struggling and struggling against the current until he couldn’t fight it anymore, while Zayn watched hopelessly, frozen to the spot, as he drowned before his eyes calling out his name.

“Harry?” Zayn shot up to a sitting position when he realized Harry wasn’t lying next to him anymore. He was alone, the pale grey of early morning was seeping through the window, and it was still raining like hell.

Zayn pulled on his jacket and his boots with shaking hands, the images and emotions from his dream still so raw and potent that he couldn’t entirely convince himself it hadn’t happened for real. His pulse was shuttering in his neck, and an overwhelming sense of dread sat heavy in the bottom of his chest as he headed out the door of Sawyer’s bedroom.

The front room was empty, and the cabin seemed unusually still. Zayn kept walking right through it, out the back door, his feet immediately sinking into the mud and excess rain water, wetting his socks, chilling his feet. The rain was coming down so hard it was almost impossible to see through it. And there was fog hovering over the ground, the same color white as the sky. 

Zayn squinted through it, becoming drenched almost immediately. “Harry?” He called out.

The squelch his boots made every time he took a step on the soggy ground make Zayn’s stomach lurch, but he walked out into the yard anyway, still searching. “Harry?!”

A few moments later, he caught sight of Sawyer’s old broken-down wagon sitting off to the left. It was so wet the wood looked almost black. But beneath it, Zayn saw a figure move, knelt down in the mud, reaching under it. A moment later, the figure stood up, holding an armful of firewood against his chest, bent over to shield it from the rain. Long, dark hair, sopping wet against his forehead, and green eyes that glowed pale in the white morning light. He smiled at Zayn when he caught sight of him, and the wave of relief that ran through Zayn’s chest after that was like being blown off his feet by a powerful gust of wind. 

“Morning, Sheriff.” Harry greeted him, grinning. Still trying to juggle the firewood in a way that would keep it from getting wet. “I wanted to start a fire this morning when I realized we’d just burned the last of the logs last night, and I got really concerned that we’d freeze to death out here, but Xander always stores more under this wagon, so I came out here to get some before it got wet from the rain and—”

The firewood fell to the mud. Zayn was kissing Harry, so hard he could feel teeth. So hard, it felt like it took everything he had, and then some. His hands were at Harry’s waist, squeezing the flesh there, giving him something to hold on to so he wouldn’t float away with the fog, turn to vapor and disappear. 

Harry broke the kiss first, his lips a dark, bruised pink, eyes incredulous. They were both breathing like they’d been sprinting, like if they didn’t suck in enough air they’d pass out from how fast their thoughts were tumbling over themselves. The rain splattered against their faces, got in their eyes, and Harry kissed Zayn back, just as hard, wrapping his arms around his neck, pressing their bodies so close they could feel every part of each other. 

The rain was absolutely freezing, but Zayn never noticed.


End file.
